Stakes, Scientists, Slayers, Oh My
by aprill99
Summary: Buffy, Angel, Bones crossover. Angel gets jammed into Booth's life with Booth's memories by the Powers that Be after Not Fade Away. The FBI cases start having a supernatural bend and when Buffy, and Spike show up in L.A. chasing a demon, things can only get more complicated. The rating is the same as the shows. If you can watch them you're fine. Bangel because I love them.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Only in my dreams do I own the Buffy and Bones characters**

**General Notes: Okay time line wise this is a little wierd. Pretend that this is basically season four of Bones taking place directly after Not Fade Away on Angel. When writing is in bold it means it's Angelus talking and italics means it's Angel thinking. There will be chapters that are from the squint squads POV's and they will be referring to Angel as Booth but it's really Angel.**

**Okay. Now you're god to go.**

Image flashes are disconcerting. Image flashes when the images aren't yours are even more disconcerting than regular ones. Image flashes of someone elses life when the last thing you remember is fighting to the death in an alley way in the darker part of L.A. is the most disconcerting thing ever.

Angel as a 247 year old vampire with a soul had experienced some pretty bizarre things, but this was a new one even for him. Not to mention that his head felt like someone had driven a jack hammer through it. He did however know to sit back (metaphorically, after all you can't sit back literally inside your own head) and absorb the information being presented.

"Curious isn't it?" said a cool female voice.

Angel jumped in surprise as the image of the female oracle came into his mental view. This reached a whole new level of wierd, because for starters, he knew for a fact that both Oracles were dead. Apparently not.

"This is a whole life presented in nothing more than images and pictures," the oracle continued.

"This isn't my life," Angel answered.

"How can you be sure?" the oracle asked.

Angel gestured as an image flashed into view. The image showed a small boy hitting an older boy on the head with a baseball bat in a front yard. "Well for one thing, I never had a brother and for another, when I was that age baseball wasn't even invented. Do I need to keep going?"

"Just because this is not the life you know doesn't mean that it is not your life."

Angel raised his eyebrows in a silent request for elaboration.

"The Powers that Be feel that you have gotten off track from some of the goals we had in mind for you. In order for you to achieve these goals we have deemed that you are needed to help people in a slightly different place with problems that are more your concern than theirs." the Oracle explained. Well, if you could call saying something that cryptic explaining.

"Would you care to elaborate on that?" Angel asked only slightly veiling his irritation.

The Oracle ignored him and handed him a ring. Angel recognized it as the Gem of Amara. "I destroyed this," he commented.

"I am a higher being," the oracle said in a _well duh you idiot _type of voice.

"So what? Am I just supposed to live this mans life until I fill out your higher power itinerary?"Angel growled irritatedly.

The oracle smiled arrogantly. "I believe you will enjoy the certain benefits. And if all goes as planned I believe the results will be most satisfactory," with that the oracle and the images began to fade away.

Angel tried to call after the sister oracle to get some sort of answers for just what the hell was going on here. After all it was his life, or rather unlife being manipulated, but was quickly distracted by a harsh, loud, repetitive beeping noise echoing inside his head. As the images faded the beeping got louder, faster, and shriller, as his headache intensified to the splitting point.

Suddenly the beeping faded to a long pulled out drown. It was highly irritating to Angel's advanced hearing abilities and he tried to shut it out.

"Booth! Oh my god Booth!" came a shrill voice.

_Booth? Who the hell is Booth? _Angel wondered. _Did I actually get turned into somebody else?_

**Booth is the guy who's life got implanted in our collective brains you half-assed moron! **Came the familiar irritating voice of Angelus through the back of his brain.

Angel mentally rolled his eyes. Not somebody else entirely then.

"Someone get the defibrillator!" came another voice.

"Whoa boy!" Angel said shooting up off of what closer inspection proved to be a hospital bed. "Let's all just hang off of the electrical shocks okay?" Angel had only had one experience with direct electric shocks to know that he did not need the extra shock to his systems. He raised his eyes to take in the bare hospital room and the shocked faces of several doctors and a brunette women who his brain identified as Bones.

The whining, drawn out beep was still echoing through Angel's ears and he turned his head in irritation towards the sound to see a flat lining EKG. Now normally it would be wonderful to know that hospital EKG's functioned correctly. But in this case the only information it gave Angel was that he was still technically dead.

Angel frowned. The Powers That Sucked seriously couldn't go to the trouble of giving him a fake heartbeat? He was in a human hospital for crying out loud! He scrambled as best he could to try and cover somehow.

**We could always just kill them. **Angelus suggested helpfully. **That would be fun. I bet you we could even find a nice hazardous waste dumpster to throw them in.**

_Shut up Angelus. _Angel thought angrily.

**Or what? you'll stake me? **Angelus retorted. **Well, sorry to burst your bubble buddy but we happen to be shareing a body. Besides, I don't see you coming up with any better suggestions!**

Angel frowned deeper and tried to come up with an alternate plan while simultaneously ignoring the voice of his rather vindictive inner demon. It wasn't all that hard, you got used to blocking out the little inner voices when you have to deal with them for the better part of a century. What was harder was blocking out the memory images running through his head. Eventually he gave up trying to come up with anything brilliant.

He looked tiredly back at the doctors and jerked his thumb back at the still whining machine "That thing is broken."

**A/N: Well this was chapter one. I hope it wasn't awful but you have to let me know. If this is too awful to ever be continued just let me know and it will be demolished from existence. If you want this to be continued tell me, and I will be very, very, happy. Any feedback at all people! I'm practically begging you here!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Hahahahhahahahahahahahah. NO!**

Angel was feeling tired and to be quite honest he was grumpy. Honestly he had very good reason to feel this way. He had spent almost six weeks trying to acquaint himself with "his" life and find a butcher shop where he could discretely buy blood without being giving the 3rd degree. Another problem was having to convince people that he was not actually dead when they kept on trying to take his pulse every five minutes.

One of the two things that were making him particularly cranky was that he was almost constantly fielding opinions being voiced by Angelus and the real Booth who was apparently renting brain space. He had more than enough problems when he was only dealing with _his _multiple identities. He really hadn't wanted a whole extra person's opinions jammed into his head.

The other thing making him cranky was that he had to completely change his hours. Angel was an old enough vampire that he didn't really need more than about four hours of sleep. However, the fact that FBI agents worked during the day, wasn't really meshing with the fact that vampires were, and would always be, nocturnal.

Now he was sitting inside the office of an FBI shrink who, according to Booth's memories, was the equivalent of his annoying younger brother so that he could get reinstated to work at the FBI.

Angel wasn't really worried too badly about working at the FBI. He had been around _longer_ than the FBI and Booth had been good at his job. Besides, after you've experienced your tenth apocalypse, you started to not worry about your first day at a new job.

"I don't like cats and I hate clowns," Angel stated as he continued proving that he as Booth knew what his life was. It was kind of ironic really.

"Well that's consistent with the person you were before your brain surgery," Sweets confirmed.

"Great, so can I go back to work now?" Angel asked. He knew from Booth's memories that he was not supposed to be an overly patient person.

"When our sense of reality is challenged, and I mean really challenged, it can take soe time to really regain our footing."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Look it's been six weeks since I had my brain surgery okay? I am back Special Agent Seeley Joseph Booth." he had practiced his name repeatedly over the last six weeks. he had also found and read Booth's agency file so he knew just what exactly "he" had done.

"Have you talked to Doctor Brennan at all since you were released from the hospital?" Sweets probed. Something had seemed off to him about his friend since this interview began. Booth had listed off facts about his life like he had memorized a biography, not like he was talking about himself. Sweets hoped that by asking about someone close to Booth he would receive a more lively answer.

Angel let his head thump back against the couch and frowned. He searched his brain for exactly why he hadn't seen the Doctor, who he had found out later from Booth's memories was his work partner and close friend. "Uh no. She's in Guatemala. They're uh, digging up Aztecs or something." That was going to be another problem Angel realized. He was going to have to pretend to be a lot less intelligent than he actually was.

Sweets leaned back. "Okay I'm officially reinstating you for active duty."

Angel nodded and stood up.

Sweets eyed him oddly. "What? No comment?"

Angel shrugged. He was a, if-you-don't-need-to-know-then-I-won't-be-telling-you kind of a person when it came down to a matter of his thoughts and feelings.

He turned and walked out the door before heading to the Jeffersonian Institution were the scientists Booth had worked with solved murders. He slipped into the building unnoticed and headed for where he knew Doctor Brennan had her office.

When he entered the room he looked around it carefully. Booth's memories of this room was no where near sharp enough for Angel's taste and he wanted to know the space. When he had finished looking around he sank down on the couch.

He was feeling sleepy and the room was only dimly lit. Besides, it was past eleven o'clock in the afternoon. Normally Angel would have gone to sleep nearly four hours ago. It wouldn't hurt him to get some more sleep. He closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off.

* * *

Angel jolted awake again to the sound of a heartbeat coming closer and the smell of perfume, disinfectant, and human bone.

_Well that would be Bones I guess. _He thought to himself and got gracefully to his feet right in time to catch the Forensic Anthropologist when she stumbled from the surprise of seeing him.

"Booth!" she exclaimed happily.

"Bones!" Angel greeted, trying to inject the right amount of enthusiasm into his tone.

Bones hugged him and Angel hugged back automatically. One of the perks to having known Buffy, Cordelia, and Fred was that he had learned when hugs were expected. He pulled away after a moment.

"I got reinstated on the day you came home. Is that just the weirdest coincidence ever?" he asked. He was still trying to keep up the cheerful dialogue that Booth used. Why had the Powers decided to give him the life of someone so chatty?

"No," Bones argued. "In fact it's not even the weirdest coincidence today." Bones looked Booth over and put her bag down on the floor. "If you were reinstated then how come your dressed like a furniture mover?"

Angel wasn't sure how to respond to that, "Well Sweets just reinstated me so I came straight over to tell you." It was a good response and Bones excepted it easily.

"How come it took you so long to recover?" she asked.

"Don't worry nothing is wrong with me." Angel assured her while ignoring her real question.

**Oh yeah. Multiple voices inside your head, drinking blood, no pulse, immortality, a non ability to be near holy objects and garlic. You are just the picture of mental and physical normality. **Angelus mocked.

_Shut up! _Angel snapped. _I wouldn't be hearing voices if you cleared the hell out._

**Can't argue with you there sport.**

_**Can you talk to Bones now?** _Booth asked.

_Both of you shut the hell up! _Angel was jerked from his mental arguing by another women walking into the room.

Angel. His mind labeled. Angel breathed in through his nose so that he would be able to find Angela by scent if he ever had to. It was a mix of perfume and pencil shavings, and vaguely like gypsy spice. Angel shivered at that last one. He really did not have a good history with gypsies.

"Hey Brennan. Hey Booth," she greeted with a warm smile. "There are 12 bodies buried under the Taversion Fountain."

Angel was slightly taken a back by how calmly and sincerely she presented this fact. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"Avalon told me."

Avalon? There were no memories of an Avalon. "Who is Avalon?"

"Avalon is Angela's psychic," Bones answered.

Angel nodded while privately thinking, _C__rap. I bet that's the gypsy. _

"Booth don't tell me your superstitious enough to believe in psychics!" Bones exclaimed.

Angel shrugged. He had met psychics. It was hard to not believe in something that you've actually spent time with.

Angela left and Angel said, "Let's go check it out."

"What? Why?" Bones protested.

"Six weeks Bones I'm going stir crazy here okay! Just let me suite up." Angel pleaded.

"Can I at least shower first?"

"Yeah I have to shave."

* * *

Half an hour later Angel was wearing a standard FBI suite walking around the fountain with Bones. He had been very glad to learn that sunglasses were regulation. 220 years of only going out at night had a way of making your eyes sensitive.

Angel had been half carrying out a conversation with Bones about the equipment they were using when a comment caught his attention.

"You're dressed very oddly."

"What do you mean? This is standard issue FBI." Angel protested.

"What about the garish socks and the gaudy tie?" Bones asked.

Angel looked at her blankly. Booth's memories hadn't included anything about socks.

"You resist regimentation with these tiny symbols of rebellion." she informed him.

"I remember," he lied. His ears picked up th beeping off the machine they were using to find the bodies. "What's there?"

"Nothing! Because there is no such thing as a psychic!"

The beeping got to the point were it was loud enough for human hearing to detect.

"The psychic was right," Bones murmured.

"Why? What is that?" Booth asked peering over her shoulder at the screen.

"Human remains," Bones informed him. "Lots of them."

Twenty minutes later the two of them were explaining to the lawyer Miss Julian what they had found.

"Is there any chance that these are the remains of Indians who should be left in peace?" Miss Julian asked.

"No," Angel told her definitively. He would have sensed the spirits if they had been there to be disturbed. "Look, Bones wants to start digging and I have to go question this psychic-" he started to say before the lawyer cut him off.

"I did not hear psychic I heard anonymous source."

Angel rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Just get Bones the warrant she needs so that they can start digging."

"Wow," Miss Julian said. "You are anxious to get back to work. Got something to prove Cherie?"

Angel made a mental note to be less enthusiastic in future.

"It is possible that Booth feels the urge to prove that he is no longer brain damaged," Bones supplied helpfully.

"You can start digging. I'll have the warrant in 10 minutes." Miss Julian told them before walking away.

"Oh yeah we are back!" Angel celebrated and held his hand up for a high five.

"Your the one who told me to never look happy at a crime scene," Bones told him, startled.

"Right," Angel said straightening his suite and adjusting his sunglasses. "We'll be happy after we've solved this horrible crime and get them behind bars."

* * *

Angel took a deep breath before walking into the interrogation room.

The blonde psychic turned towards him and gasped. She recognized the aura of the soul curse hovering around him. "You?" she asked in Romanian.

Angel gave a pained smile and answered in the same language. "mă." (me). He sat down in front of the psychic.

"Mi-ar fi crezut că ar fi mort până acum," she told him.

Angel winced. Avalon had just told him that she had thought he would be dead by now. "I'm sorry to disapoint you," he told her.

"Deci, ce sa întâmplat?" (so what happened?) Avalon asked.

"I learned to live with the guilt." he responded calmly. "Joc bun cu clauza fericirii de drum. Cine a venit cu asta?" (nice play with the happines clause by the way. Who came up with that?)

"Acesta a fost unanim." (It was unanimous) Avalon smiled and switched to English for the benifit of people who would review the tape. "Pick a card please."

Angel blinked. "Um, okay." he selected a tarot card at random and handed it to Avalon.

She flipped it over. "You're worried you lost something."

**No shit Sherlock.** Angelus thought.

"I don't need a tarot card reading right now Miss Harmonia. What I need to know is how you knew about the bodies." Angel didn't actually expect a logical answer. Avalon was a gypsy. She probably had learned everything through magic.

"It's all in the cards," Avalon told him.

Angel forced a polite smile and got up to leave.

"Angelus!" she called after him.

Angel stiffen and turned back to her. "Yes?"

"Dacă veți face acest lucru va fi cu un pas mai aproape de a iertat." she told him. (If you so this you will be one step closer to forgiven).

"Speram ca 90 de ani de vinovăție și suferință, împreună cu prevenirea apocalipsa care ar fi acoperit." he told her (I was hoping 90 years of guilt and suffering would have covered that).

"It's all in the cards." Avalon said with a smile.

* * *

The next few steps of the investigation went fairly well for Angel. They figured out that Avalon's sister was one of the bodies below the fountain and that they were part of an organization called the Harbingers of the new Day for people with MCS.

He also looked through old newspaper articles of cases Booth had worked before. He also managed to make it through several more meetings with Avalon without feeling the need to run away as fast as possible. They also met with a doctor who Angel frankly mistrusted.

Really his job at the FBI was a lot like running Angel Investigations. Only, without quite so much violence and supernatural slime.

* * *

He walked into his office at the FBI to find Sweets waiting for him.

"Hey Sweets. I feel fine everything works my brain is good." he tried to reassure.

"Well I have been informed that your brain thinks that it is in love according to these brain scans," Sweets told him.

Angel immediately thought of Buffy.

**Well duh It says your in love. Much as the idea makes me want to hurl or possibly kill something, I can't ignore that you love the little slayer. **Angelus scoffed

_**Who's Buffy?**_Booth asked.

**Shut up Army Boy! This is between me and him. **Angelus snapped

_Both of you shut up! God! it's like running a day care in my brain!_

_"_See? This is a brain scan from before you went into your coma and you were not in love."

Angel nodded. It made sense that before the coma he wouldn't be in love. Before the comma he had been a completely different person.

"This is from while you were in a coma." Sweets said. "See it just lit up like the 4th of July." Sweets clicked something on the screen and pulled up a new window showing a new brain scan. "Same scan three day's ago." Sweets watched his friend for a reaction and when he didn't receive one he gave up. "I'll leave you hard copies."

* * *

Aside from one other meeting with Avalon, and Bones being stabbed the case ended well. Tom Fargood A.K.A the bad guy went to jail

A moment before Avalon left she had turned around and smiled at him and said, "Apropo. Cardurile-mi spui toate astea funcționează în cele din urmă." Or, "The cards tell me this all works out eventually."

Angel nodded. "Thanks."

Avalon smiled again and left.

Bones looked at Angel curiously. "What were you speaking Booth?"

"It's Romanian," he told her absently.

"You speak Romanian?" she said in surprise. She knew Booth pretty well and was fairly sure he had never mentioned Romania.

"Uh huh," Angel muttered. "Are we going to get that drink or what?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

Angel let out a sigh of relief. He really had no clue what the point of this was. Sure he had helped catch the bad guy but the actual agent Booth could have done that. He had also run into one of the gypsy who was indirectly responsible for his current situation.

He didn't know what the Powers wanted from him but his only option was to keep jumping through the hoops they set up until he could work it out. Angel had tried to call members from his team and Buffy's but nothing had gone through. It was like every time he tried to call someone from his world he suddenly lost service.

Maybe Avalon was right. Maybe he just had to trust the cards.

**A/N: So how was it? No one even told me how the first chapter was! If this is awful and no body tells me then I will unknowingly be putting the FanFiction world through unnecessary torture! I hope you liked it. Review for me! ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Non of these characters are mine. The dialouge and plot in this chapter where altered slightly from the 7th episode of season 5 of Bones.**

Nearly a month later Angel was attempting to learn how to aim and fire a gun. Normally Angel was pretty good with weapons. After all, when you fight supernatural beings pretty much 24-7 you get pretty good, but firearms had never been something he had needed to learn about. You can't kill a hell beast with a 22.

Most of the skills that Booth had possessed had transferred over. Unfortunately, aiming a gun hadn't been one of them. Now, Angel was relying on his photographic memory and supernatural reflexes to figure out the weapon.

Frankly, Angel didn't see the point. He could break someones neck almost faster than he could shoot them and the result would be exactly the same. The person would be dead.

The next step Angel decided to take was to see if aiming was a psychological thing.

_Hey Booth! psychological issue, do I go to Sweets or somebody else? _Angel asked mentally.

**_Go see Gordon Gordon Wyat._**Booth advised. _**Last I heard he was working at a restaurant.**_

Angel was jolted out of his mental conversation when his cell phone rang. He checked the message to see that a dead body had been fond in a sink hole so he went to pick up ones and get to the crime scene.

Bones studied her partner as they went. Over the past few weeks she had noticed changes in his behavior. He was quieter than usual and he seemed more content to watch people instead of being directly the time they had reached the crime scene her partners uncharacteristic silence was too much to bear.

"Why aren't you cracking wise?" she asked.

Angel shrugged. "Because it's not 1945." He was almost sure that was the time period when that saying had last been popular. Although he might have been wrong considering he fact that he had lived in an alley in L.A. at the time.

"I've noticed in the past when you're grumpy that your mood seems to elevate when you tell me about it," she prodded in concern.

"I just had a bad day on the range"

"Is that a cowboy mediphore?" she asked in confusion.

"Um no," Angel replied quietly.

"Perhaps if you want to improve your aim you should just practice more." Bones suggested.

**Gee. Because we hadn't thought of that. **Angelus commented.

Angel might have replied. But for once he was in agreement with his demon, so he let it go.

They avoided the cop at the scene to find the bones.

"Wow. Those are really green." Angel commented absently.

"That is not a priority." Bones told him.

"How can being green not be a priority?" Angel wondered.

"Hey! Gold coin!" Bones exclaimed. Tossing him the glittering object.

Angel caught the coin out of reflex and glanced at it. It was a Chinese Panda coin. He heard a pipe rumbling and looked up. "Hey Bones! You're going to want to-" the water maine split open. "Move." Angel finished. "Hey Bones! You are standing at the end of a beautiful rainbow."

"Where I am is at the bottom of a muddy pit," she told him rationally.

Angel rolled his eyes. This women needed a lesson in the meaning of the word, metaphorical. "Think about it," he told her. "Little green guy, gold coins, rainbow. What does that tell you?"

"That I need an umbrella and that the remains are compromised."

"It tells me leprechaun," Angel said closing his eyes to make a wish. He knew that technically leprechaun were one of the few supernatural creatures that humans had actually made up, but he had been born in 18th century Ireland. Leprechauns had been a part of almost all of his human bedtime stories.

"Are you praying?" Bones asked in an annoyed voice.

"I'm making a wish." he told her.

"Same thing really. Instead of relying on superstitions to shoot better you should simply practice more."

**Can we eat her now? That toan of voice is really irritating. **Angelus asked.

Angel glowered. "How about we just get him back to the lab alright? Somebody shut the water off!"

* * *

Later Angel managed to convince Booth's therapist-now-chef friend to help him with the shooting problem. He decided that he liked the English chef. He seemed like a jolly person. If anything he was a bit like a straight, non-singing Lorne. Sweets was a bit like that too, only he was younger and more impressionable.

Angel was finding that many aspects of Booth's life were very similar to his own. Booth was also seeking redemption for multiple killings. Bones was like a more vocal and even less social version of Fred. Angela was like a more relaxed Cordelia. Hodgins was a more bug oriented Wesley from before he had become a fighter. Cam was harder to compare, but she was also easiest to get along with.

Another aspect that was similar was that Booth had a son he didn't get to spend much time with. Of course the reasons were completely different. Booth merely hadn't been married to his son's mother, where as Angel had actually killed his kid's mother at one point before she came back to life and they had a kid together. Not to mention that Angel hadn't even known he was going to have the kid until about a week before it had happened, and that kid had later been kidnapped to a hell dimension and come back 18 years older than when he had left.

The mother was fairly similar however. A bitchy, selfish, blonde, who never cared about anything or anyone else. Angel had nearly laughed out load from the irony of the situation when he had learned about it.

Over all, Angel thought he was doing a pretty good job of being Booth. The only time it really became difficult to pretend was when details from his life were down right opposites.

For example: Angel's only sibling had been a sweet little sister named Kathy, where Booth had a headstrong, annoying, younger brother. Booth's father had been physically abusive while Angel's human father had stuck with the verbal type.

When that kind of thing happened it was guaranteed to give Angel a whopper of a headache.

* * *

Later that night Angel, Bones, And Chef Gordon Gordon Wyatt all went to a wrestling ring to find out it the person they thought was dead was actually dead.

The whole atmosphere of the place made Angel feel nauseous. There were to many heartbeats and hormones working way too fast for him to concentrate on anything. Smells and sounds assaulted his senses and he half felt like just yelling at everyone to shut the hell up.

As they went Angel pretended that he couldn't hear the conversation that Bones and the therapist were having about him. He had learned over time that people got unnerved when they figured out that you could hear their conversations from over five feet away in a crowded building.

Basically they were just discussing things that Booth normally did that Angel didn't. Such as not wearing brightly colored socks. Personally Angel didn't see why the socks thing was so important.

As they got closer to the ring Angel winced repeatedly since the noise got louder. Bones began a rant about how she had found their dead guy but Angel cut her off. "Do you want to go tell he poor guy he's dead or shall I?"

"He does look a bit vigorous for a dead man," Gordon Gordon commented drily.

Angel gave a choked cough. He had seen plenty of dead people who had done way more damage than the midget in the wrestling ring was doing.

"No, the physiological markers are incorrect," Bones told the two of them before she began to boo loudly.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked her in irritation. She was standing right next to him and the added noise was by no means making him feel better.

"Booing is the correct way to show displeasure at a sporting event," she said matter of factly.

A few moments later a guy dressed like a bumble bee had pinned the guy dressed like a leprechaun and Angel had seen enough. He stepped up to the edge of the ring and held out his badge. "Excuse me. FBI I need to talk to you."

"FBI!" the midget squeaked in terror before starting to run away.

Angel sighed and swung up and into the ring. "Look you really don't want to be doing that." he told the charging midget seconds before he crashed into him. The hit didn't even hurt Angel but the tiny wrestler was knocked flat on the floor.

"Booth are you alright?" Bones called to him.

"Yeah I'm fine." Angel told her as the leprechaun leaped on him from behind covering his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Angel said annoyed.

"Booth?" Bones called.

"Still fine," he answered. "Look could you just get off my back? I'm really starting to lose my patients," on that note, Angel flipped the tiny man over his shoulder and onto the floor of the ring.

The whole crowed groaned and winced collectively as the little man stood back up and charged at him a gain.

Angel rolled his eyes and drove his elbow down directly into the other mans neck hitting the nerve that caused unconsciousness.

The crowed booed again.

"What did you expect me to do? He came at me like a rabid ferret!" Angel asked.

Bones gave him a thumbs down sign as Angel threw the midget over his shoulder and walked out of the ring.

* * *

At the FBI headquarters, Sweets was waiting to question the leprechaun when Gordon Gordon Wyatt walked in.

After the two had exchanged greetings Gordon Gordon spoke. "Ah, observing your pray before going in to attack are you?"

"Yeah, Booth has let me do more interrogations lately," Sweets answered proudly. It was true. Angel had asked Sweets to do most of the interrogations. What Sweets didn't know was that Angel had asked because he wasn't practiced in any form of interrogation that didn't involve pain of some sort.

"That's quite a vote of confidence," the chef congratulated.

"You're here because of Booth aren't you?" Sweets asked as they left the room. "It's okay I understand. There have been some changes in Booth."

"What since the brain tumor?"

"Yeah that's why he came to you isn't it? He doesn't trust me? Oh right how could I forget about chef client privileges." they stopped outside of the door to the interrogation room. "Has he also told you about how when he climbs stairs he leads with his right foot and not his left?" Sweets asked. "He holds his phone to a different ear? Coffee in his left hand?"

"How wretchedly observant of you!" Gordon exclaimed.

"Not me. Doctor Brennan," Sweets admitted. "Would you like to go with me?"

"To what end?"

"Double teamed by a psychologist and a chef? It'll be epic!" Sweets said with a grin.

The two men went in for a very successful interrogation and afterwards they went for food at the dinner. They discussed Gordon Gordon's retirement and why Booth went to him instead of Sweets. They also discussed Booth's sudden inability to fire a gun.

* * *

Angel spent the time while that was happening to conduct interviews with possible suspects.

He knew that people were probably delving into how he had changed since the coma but he didn't really care. He doubted that any of them would ever arrive at a conclusion that was anywhere near the truth. Because really, who would guess that he was actually a 247 year old vampire who had been jammed into their friends life for god knew what reason.

He was correct in his assumptions that Gordon Gordon would interview people. More so because of the fact that while he was still busy at the FBI. Gordon Gordon was having a talk with Angela.

* * *

"He's not as happy-go-lucky as he used to be. It's like he's kind of sad." was what Angela said when she was asked about Booth's behavior.

"Perhaps the coma forced Booth to face his own mortality," Gordon Gordon suggested.

Angela shook her head. "Booth has confronted his mortality plenty of times. I think that whatever world he was in during was dream made him happy. I think he kind of misses that dream. It's like he's homesick for that place, and those people."

"You think that Booth fell in love with someone during his dream?" Gordon said. It matched with his own theory on the matter so he enjoyed hearing it confirmed by somebody else.

"So do you," Angela told him knowingly.

* * *

Angel and Bones had managed to work out that the murder victim had tunneled into a jewelry store and probably been killed by his accomplice.

It made Angel feel slightly disgusted. It seemed to him that it didn't matter who or what you were, you would still kill for money. Personally, he had never found that as motivation. When he killed people it was either out of self-defense, defense of others, or for pleasure when he was Angelus.

Another thing was bothering Angel about the case though. He had figured out that the wife of the victim's brother had had an affair with the victim. So, the next morning Angel took the woman to wear they had found the remains.

"We found him over there." Angel said pointing. "He had come from the store lugging his own weight and gold coins. He got out and was shot." Angel turned back to Nicole. "He was doing it for you wasn't he?"

Nicole looked like she was about to cry but nodded.

"How long were you having an affair behind your husbands back?" Angel asked gently.

"Since highschool," she said sniffing. "I wrote Bryce in prison saying we had to stop but when he got out on parole he got it into his head that he just had to be a better provider than his brother." She looked up at Angel. "You're not going to tell my husband are you?"

Angel shook his head. "I won't say anything, but I am going to tell you that if you've been in love with someone else for 10 years, your husband knows. What I need to know is who helped Bryce with this burglary.

"Probably someone he met in prison." Nichol rubbed her eyes again. "If I knew he was stealing I would have begged him to stop!"

"You see Ms. Dafanto when a man can't be with the woman that he loves, he gets a little crazy."

**You'd know all about that now wouldn't you Soul Boy? Five years away from Buff must still just be eating you up inside. **Angelus taunted.

_Shut the hell up Angelus!_

**Hey don't get mad at me. I just want you to be happy. Perfectly, happy.**

Angel went back to his conversation. "One brother died for you over there." Nicole wanted to look away but couldn't. "The other one, your husband? You put him through hell."

_Now that I definantly know about. _

* * *

Hodgins later found the older brothers high school ring and Angel and Bones proved that he was the murderer.

That night Angel went back to Gordon Gordon to try and work out how to use a fire arm.

He was informed very pleasantly that it was not because of brain damage. That would have reassured him if Angel had considered it as a possibility.

"You fell in love during your coma," the chef informed him. "Now I don't know who this girl is, but you've built a world around her. A family."

Angel didn't bother denying it. Almost everyone he thought of as a friend or family member he had met either indirectly or directly because of Buffy. When he was asked to picture family he thought of her first.

"So about the marksmanship test tomorrow, any advice?" he asked hopefully.

Gordon Gordon leaned forward to give his advice. "Grow a set! Step up! Be a man! Your job is highly dangerous and Temperance Brennan relies on you for protection! And I can bet whoever you're in love with wouldn't mind you coming back to her in one piece at the end of the day."

"So that's your big advice? Grow a set?" Angel asked skeptically.

Gordon Gordon nodded. "Take this girl or Doctor Brennan to the shooting range tomorrow. You won't fail in front of one of them."

Angel nodded. He decided that as there was absolutely no way that he could get Buffy to show up since h couldn't even call her he would have to take Bones.

The next morning he aced the marksmanship exam.

**A/N: Well? How was it? More Buffy characters will come in in the next chapter. These last few have just been to set the stadge. Review if you thought this was even slightly worth reading! :) :) :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from the shows. I did make up Alec though.**

Angela walked into her office a few days later to find Booth passed out on her couch. Angela checked the clock. It was roughly 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Not generally nap time for most people, but Booth looked pretty far under to Angela. She decided to let him sleep. She had noticed that Booth had been looking paler lately and she was worried that he hadn't been sleeping enough.

She walked to her computer and pressed a few keys before looking back over at Booth. He was remarkably still for a sleeping person. Angela noted. He hadn't shifted or twitched and he wasn't snoring. Angela could barely even make out his breathing.

Angela did see a sketch pad pinned under Booth's arm. Angela frowned. As far as she knew Booth hadn't even done the required art during school.

Angela looked back at her work and tried to concentrate, but she found her gaze pulled repeatedly back towards the sketch pad. She knew that it was a fairly unethical to give into her curiosity in this case, but she had never had very good impulse control.

After around five minutes Angela couldn't resist any longer. She tip toed towards him and gently slid the pad of paper from his arm.

She flipped over the first page and nearly gasped in surprise. The drawing was of a beautiful girl. The drawing was gorgeous. It was done in charcoal and graphite, and each stroke was carefully done. From the shading Angela guessed that the girl would have been blonde in reality, and her eyes would have been relatively light in color. The charcoal lines had picked out very delicate bone features, and Angela guessed that she would probably be a petite person. The girl looked like she was around fifteen or sixteen, and she was sitting on the steps of a building. her hair was down around her face, and one hand was holding a lollypop.

Angela traced her fingers over the lines of the picture. She was an artist and she could appreciate fine art. There was no denying that the person who had drawn the picture had poured in the utmost care, and love. To make such a realistic portrait, even for a skilled artist took time and devotion.

Angela flipped the pages of the sketch book. Almost all of the pictures where of people. A man with a beard and large glasses, a girl with short hair and a mega wat smile, another girl with big, shocked eyes, and a shy smile, a bald man with African American features and a large grin, and a man with high cheek bones, slicked back hair, and a smug grin. The girl from the first page was also presented over and over again.

She looked down at Angel. Something seemed off about him. The lack of movement didn't seem quite right. She didn't know it, but it looked like Booth wasn't breathing because he actually wasn't. Angel only breathed while he was awake out of habit. When he was asleep the pattern lapsed.

"Oh my god Booth!" Angela panicked.

Angel jerked awake. "What? Who's dead?"

"You were! I thought!" Angela explained with a hand over her heart.

"Oh," Angel blinked sleepily. He still couldn't break his nocturnal habits which meant that he could only grab about 2 or 3 hours a day break time at work.

Angela shook her head. "Well, now that you've given me a heart attack, is there a reason that you were passed out on my couch?"

"Oh." Angel blinked again. "Um, Bones had a meeting and you had the other couch so..." Angel looked around. "Sketch pad?" he asked.

"Right here." Angela held it out to him.

Angel straightened as he took the pad back. "You didn't look at these did you?" Angela flushed guiltily. "Great," Angel sighed.

"They're so beautiful though!" Angela exclaimed. "Why don't you show these to anyone? I mean! I never even knew you could draw!"

"I didn't ever plan on bringing it up," Angel mumbled as he stood up from the couch and made to leave.

Just as he was going out the door Angela called out to stop him. "Who was she?"

Angel turned slowly. "Just someone I knew." he lied.

Angela shook her head. "No way Booth. If you took that much care to draw her than she is _not_ just some girl you knew." Angela pointed towards the sketch book. "Artists only take that kind of care to draw people they care about. People they love."

There was absolute silence for a long moment. Angel turned away. "I have to go meet with Sweets and Bones," when he was almost out the door he called back. "Don't mention this to anybody." and then he was gone.

* * *

At the end of the meeting with Sweets, night was falling outside the windows, and as a result Angel was feeling much more energized. His nerves and senses had picked up to full speed and he felt like he had downed several cups of espresso. Without the normally jittery effects caffeine normally gave him. He felt completely ready to go and kill of the beasts of hell. It turned out that vamps and demons were almost as big in D.C. cemeteries as they were in L.A.

"Do you want me to give you a ride Bones?" he asked as he headed out the door.

"Oh, no thank you Booth I have my car," she answered.

Angel nodded and slipped out the door, and out of the building into the familiar dark.

Sweets frowned slightly when Doctor Brennan didn't move from her seat. Normally she and Booth left like bats from hell the second their meetings were over. "Can I help you Doctor Brennan?"

Brennan bit her lip hesitantly. "I'm worried about Booth." She confided.

Sweets shifted to attention. "I'm listening."

"I've noticed some more changes in his behavior since the coma."

"Okay, such as?"

Bones sit her lip again and mulled over just how much to tell him. "He hasn't been eating, and his sleeping patterns seem to have shifted. Neither of which are healthy for someone who works the way that Booth does. The lack of eating alone could be harmful to Booth's physical ability."

Sweets frowned again. "It's possible that he is simply eating when you aren't around. After all, Booth has performed his job with the same accuracy as ever. What I am more worried about are the changing sleep habits. Can you describe how they seem altered to you?"

This was more of listing scientific symptoms which was something that Bones was comfortable with. "Booth has been much less energetic during the day particularly between 11 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. However, anytime after that he seems fully active and energetic." Bones thought for a moment to think of any other changes. "Also, this is a little farther out of my knowledge zone but he seems much paler, and quieter."

Sweets thought hard about what any of the symptoms could mean, but the best he could come up with was stress anxiety. He resolved to keep on contemplating until he could some up with anything. He thanked Doctor Brennan and she left while Sweets continued to think.

* * *

Angel stretched comfortably in the cool night air. This pattern was familiar too him. Find a graveyard. Get a list of newly buried people. Wait to see if anyone came out to play. If they did, presto! one brand new dust pile. It was almost too easy most times. Most fledges barely even put up a fight.

_I need to find something a little harder to kill. _Angel thought.

**Now he realizes. **Angelus snarked. **Can we find some big world ending thing to fight now? I'm getting bored.**

"Oh my god I can't believe I'm agreeing with my psychotic inner demon," Angel muttered out loud.

"Booth? What are you doing here?" came Hodgins voice.

Angel did some extremely colorful swearing in Gaelic before turning around to face the entomologist. "I could ask you the same question Hodgins. What the hell are you doing out here?! It's nine o'clock at night in the middle of a freaking graveyard! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" he ranted.

Hodgins threw his hands up in defense. "Hey, calm down dude! I'm just delivering some flora to Great and Doris. See?" he held up a large tissue wrapped bouquet of daffodils.

The cloying smell assaulted Angels nose. "Oh god," he muttered. "Look, could you flower great aunt Doris and get the hell home? I don't want to have to kill you."

"Alright calm down." Hodgins muttered. "Hey what's with the fence post?" he asked.

Angel glanced down at the stake he was still holding and tucked it into the belt loop of the leather pants he had wound up wearing that night. Angel had taken to patrolling in Angelus clothing just in case. He was careful to hide it under his aviator jacket "Nothing, I just, um found it. Now get home before us talking wakes the dead."

There was a ripping sound from behind Angel and he spun on the spot. He was confronted with a towering vampire in an old fashioned black suite in full vamp face snarling ferally.

"Well, to late for that I guess," Angel commented dryly. He thought quickly before deciding on the right course of action to remove Hodgins from the situation. He knocked him out cold with a hit to the back of the head.

Hodgins dropped like heavy log and fell against a gravestone, banging his head again. He would probably have a killer headache when he woke up, but that wasn't Angel's prime concern at that precise moment.

At the sound of his voice the vampire spun towards him. "Angelus? Old friend! Is that you old chum?"

Angel let his face slip into full morph and stepped forward to meet the vampire. "Alec? I haven't seen you since Venice in the 1840's. What are you doing fake rising like this?"

The vampire named Alec faked a hurt expression that didn't fit with his twisted features. "Come now Angelus! Is that anyway to great an old friend." he held out his arms like he was expecting a hug.

Angel thought that his best move would be to go with it so he returned the hug. He had known Alec over 100 years ago as Angelus. The two of them had had an excellent time causing mass destruction throughout Italy and France. Angel had fallen out of touch with Alec like he had with everyone else when he got his soul.

"Your clothing seems strange," Alec commented. "What year is this?"

"Two thousand and thirteen. When else would it be," Angel told him.

"I don't know," Alec shrugged. "That damned slayer got me in 1879. A few weeks ago I woke up good as a century old in the middle of the Piazza Rivera. I heard the new slayer was in the United States and there was a magic center in D.C. I thought that pretending to be dead was a good way to snare a slayer. Expecting a fledge and getting a master they wouldn't stand a chance. How have you been?" he asked.

Angelus shrugged. "Decent. Spent some quality time on the Hellmouth. Went to hell for a little while."

"It's not pleasant? Is it?" Alec commented conversationally.

"It could do with a remodel," Angel agreed before ramming the stake into his old friends heart. "Maybe you can suggest it when you get back there."

Angel was frowning and thinking about the issue of long dusted vampires coming back to life. His thoughts were interrupted by Hodgins groaning as he came back into consciousness.

"Ow! What the hell?" he groaned.

"You tripped and hit your head." Angel told him.

"Oh. How come I don't remember that?" Hodgins asked as Angel helped him to his feet.

Angel looked Hodgins straight in the face. "Hodgins, listen to me." he injected his thrawling power into his voice. "I met you here at the cemetary while you were leaving flowers for your Great Aunt Doris. You got up to leave and tripped over a grave. You hit your head, and have been unconscious for several minutes. It doesn't matter why I was here, and this conversation never happened. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Hodgins echoed blankly.

"Good," Angel started to lead Hodgins back towards the cemetary parking lot. "God! Everytime I do that I feel just a bit more like Dracula," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

**A/N: Well? How was it? I have now introduced the Big Bad force of the story. Buffy and Spike will be making a grand entrance in the next chapter. Reviews are the essence of amazing! :) :) :) :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Um. If I owned all of these characters I would be completely mega rich, living in California, and definantly not using my winter break to write this for no other reason than the people of the internet's enjoyment.**

Angel was still patrolling when the sun started to rise. His cell phone started top ring just as he killed the last fledge to rise that night. He had patrolled for longer than normal brooding about Alec's re-rising. He grabbed the phone as the vampire exploded and wafted away on a gentle breeze.

"Booth here," he answered.

"Booth! You sound very awake for 2 in the morning," Cam said.

"What do you need Camille?" Angel sighed irritatedly, ignoring her previous statement.

"We have a body in the lab with some strange physical features and marks. They called me when the body was brought in and Dr. Brennan's already here, so I thought I'd call you."

Angel glanced down at his patrol clothes and hurriedly brushed off the greater amount of the vampire dust covering him. He decided that it was about as good as he was going to get, the lab members would just have to wonder about the leather. "I'm on my way." he told Cam.

* * *

Buffy groaned and opened her eyes. The last memory she remembered getting sucked through a portal with Spike when they had been hunting a demon that looked like an awful lot like a gigantic squid. Only, with a lot more teeth.

She looked around and took in her surroundings. It looked like some type of medical lab which explained the cold tile she was lying on. She could tell from the glass windows that the sun hadn't risen yet, so their hadn't been any huge time lapse which was slightly reassuring. The only really immediately reassuring thing about her surroundings was the sight of Spike passed out cold on the floor a few feet away.

She reached out and punched Spike in the shoulder to wake him up.

"Ow! Bloody hell!" Spike exclaimed waking up. He turned and glared at Buffy. "What in the bloody hell is your problem Slayer?"

"I need you to tell me whether or not I'm dead. 'Cause frankly if I am this is really disappointing as a heaven." Buffy critiqued.

"Isn't that something you should be able to tell for yourself pet?" Spike asked with a frown.

Buffy shrugged. "Well it's happened three times so far. It's getting kind of hard to tell." She paused for a moment. "That sounded a whole lot less morbid in my head." She turned puppy dog eyes on Spike. "Please..."

Spike groaned, grabbed Buffy's hand and placed it over his nose. "Circulation's still working pet."

She beamed. "Thanks Spike."

The two of them stood up and started examining their surroundings more closely. "Hey when was the third time you died? I only remember knowing about 2."

"Oh," Buffy organized her memories for a moment. "Well their was this thing during senior year where Cordelia got really pissed at Xander and made this wish from Anya when she was still all vengeance demon that I had never come to Sunnydale. So we all got stuck into this alternate reality and, well, in the short I got killed there. But, Giles reversed the wish and then I wasn't dead anymore." She finished. "You know, I've died once every two year since becoming the slayer? If this pattern keeps up, death number four shouldn't be that far off." she thought for another moment. "That sounded less morbid in my head too."

Spike nodded. In this life, it was important to know about that type of pattern. While the thought that your dying was scheduled was kind of creepy wiereder things had definently happened in this universe. He felt a tingle run over his body and he shifted his shoulders uncomfortably.

Buffy noticed. "What's wrong."

Spike frowned. "Just this tugging feeling in the back of my brain. I normally get it around the great poof. But-" he broke off when he saw the tiny tightening of Buffy's face. "It's probably just from the magic energy from that portal.

Buffy nodded. "I've been feeling it to. A little tingly shivery feeling, so the portal seems likely. I mean it's unlikely that Angel could ever be... never mind."

Spike straightened farther and looked around the floor that they were on. "Do you hear anything?"

Buffy looked over the railing. "Well we've got two options for the noise. We have the people who work here, or we have the big slimy tentaclly demon that's about to eat them."

* * *

About five minutes ago on the bottom floor of the lab...

"Okay Cam where's the body? Hey Bones." Angel greeted when he walked into the lounge area.

"On the table downstairs," Cam said looking up from Angela's computer screan. "Nice pants Booth."

"Not your business Cam," Angel snapped.

He walked over to the railing and focused his eyes down at the body. It was a man who had been partly eviscerated and was completely covered in blue gel. Angel examined the gel and sniffed. He scrunched up his face. Defanitly demon slime.

Suddenly he felt a prickling on the back of his neck and jerked up, backing away. That kind of prickle only happened when there was a huge magical disturbance, or someone he had sired was near by. That much prickling normally only happened with both. Plus their was an odd tingle in his stomach.

Then the smell of a demon hit him and he turned to look back again. He found himself looking at a humongous squid with teeth. A whole lot of teeth.

"Cam, Bones, Angela" Angel said without turning back around. "I'm going to need you to get down and stay that way. Hodgins, you too." he ordered when he heard the entomologist enter.

He was interrupted in his out loud planning by a small body landing lightly easily on the railing in front of the monster facing them.

"Hello terrified people of..." Buffy looked around. "Where ever this is. I'm Buffy and I will be the one saving you from that large, tentacally, toothy, thing." she announced with a cheery grin to the stunned lab workers. "Now, I'll get with the slicing and dicing and then you can go back to... whatever it is, you people do."

Angel tried to find his voice but it wasn't working. The shock of seeing Buffy there had temporarily fried his brain.

Buffy turned back to the cracken look alike and leaped upward landing gently on top of it's head. She began to pummel it. The demon thrashed, and Buffy punched it in accidentally in the eye ball. It squished and gushed around her fingers.

"Uhggg!" she grimaced. "Can I hear a gross? Spike! Get the hell down here!" Buffy punched again and rolled her eyes. "Spike you bloody wanker get the hell down here now!" she said intimidating a British accent.

"Fine fine. Don't get your knickers in a twist. I'm only coming because you asked so nicely," Spike grumbled before dropping down on top of the squid demon.

Buffy punched outward again but slipped and hit Spike. "Ow!" he exclaimed. "Is it hit the Spike day again?"

Buffy would have punched him again just for that comment but she was too busy falling off of the demon. She twisted and flipped like a gymnast before landing on her feet. She looked around again. "I should so try out for the Olympics or something," she mused. "Okay back to the killing. I need a sword." Buffy looked around. "I don't suppose any of you have something sharp, pointy, and mid eval looking do you?"

Instead of answering Angel flipped a large, sharp knife, towards the demon. It sank up to the hilt in the demons eye and it shuddered and sunk to the ground.

That would have been great if the demon hadn't started to fall over. It was even less good because of the fact that it was falling towards Buffy.

"Buffy move!" Angel shouted. He jumped forward and pushed them back into the railing.

Angel waited until he couldn't hear crashing anymore before opening his eyes. He went one at a time and when Buffy wasn't glaring at him he opened the second eye. "Buffy?" he asked softly. "Buffy?"

She opened her eyes slowly. "Angel? Is that you?"

"Last time I checked." Angel answered Buffy reached up and touched his face gently as though she was checking if he was really there.

"Are you evil again?" Buffy asked when she saw the leather pants.

"That would fall under the category of not being me," Angel told her.

"Good," Buffy answered before slapping him hard across the face. "I thought you were dead you bastard!" she screamed as Angel stumbled back. "You! Let! Me! Think! That! You! Were! Dead! For! Weeks! You! Son! Of! A! Bitch!" Buffy shouted. Each of her words were punctuated with another punch.

Angel backed up as Buffy advanced but made no attempt to stop the punches she kept aiming blindly at every bit of him she could reach. The hits got weaker and weaker and Angel merely stood and took the hits, still not trying to block.

"I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead," Buffy said. Her voice sounded chocked and clogged. She slapped Angel open handed across the chest before she broke down and started to cry.

Angel lifted his arms from his sides and wrapped them around Buffy. "Shh... Shh... it's okay. I'm right here. I'm here. Don't cry." he murmured soothingly. He continued his murmuring soothing nonsense as Buffy's tears continued to soak into his shirt.

He maneuvered them gently over to the couch in the lounge so that they could sit. Buffy kept her face buried into his chest listening to his unnecessary breathing. Angel just brushed her hair lightly and let the crying run it's course.

* * *

Spike hauled himself up and over the balcony railing and looked around briefly. He caught sight of the group of slightly traumatized scientists.

"Any of you lot seen Buffy?" he asked. "Blonde thing? 'Round yay tall?" he held his hand up to chest height. He felt a tingling at the back of his skull again but shook it off casually. He thought that it was probably left over from the portal that had taken them there.

Angela pointed a shaking finger towards where Buffy sat curled up against Angel's chest.

Spike followed the line of her finger and took in the sight of his sire holding a still crying and slightly shaking Buffy.

He sighed. "That's the bloody poof isn't it? Ah well, explains the tingling." He turned back towards the squints and jerked his thumb back at the two on the couch. "They were beating each other to pulp a minute ago, yeah?"

All four nodded. Doctor Brennan was trying to rationalize what she had just seen. Cam wasn't far behind, and Angela and Hodgins were still stuck on the slime issue.

Spike pointed at Hodgins. "You, little bearded man. Do you speak?"

Hodgins cleared his throat. "Yeah I do."

"Brilliant." Spike replied. "You enjoy explosives right? I can smell it all over you. Well, do something useful, and go torch the pile of slime."

Hodgins had revived slightly at the mention of explosives and scurried off happily to blow things up.

Spike turned back to the others and pointed at Cam. "You, let me know if they start snogging." he said pointing back at the couch. He pointed at Bones, "You tell me where I can nap, and you," he turned to Cam. "Where can I find some bloody strong alcohol?"

**A/N: Hey! How was it? Did I get spike and Buffy right? Because I was really worried about making their entrance good. Please give me reviews. It really does help me write better when I have an idea of what you guys want to read.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Not even in my dreams do I actually manage to own these characters.**

A little while later, the Jeffersonian was remarkably calmer. Spike had kicked up his feet on one of the couches in Brennan's office and was cheerily explaining to Angela why scotch was a better alcoholic beverage than whiskey. Hodgins was having fun torching the squid demon, and Cam had thoughtfully catalogued everything that had happened to show Sweets later in case it turned out to be likely that he was crazy. Brennan was doing what she normally did when she didn't understand a situation and couldn't come up with a logical explanation. She was waiting for Booth to explain.

However, the person Bones though of as Booth was a bit preoccupied with holding Buffy, and marveling. Buffy was trying very hard to control her tear ducts but they didn't really want to cooperate with her. She breathed deeply to try and control her pulse and breathing. She knew that Angel could hear both perfectly and wanted to make this experience as none embarrassing as possible.

When she felt calm enough she looked up to meet Angel's eyes. "Hi," she murmured softly.

"Hi," he replied. "Are you okay?"

Buffy nodded and looked at him more closely. She frowned slightly. Angel looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, possibly longer. Even powerful vampires needed to sleep. She reached up and touched the shadows under his eyes. "You look like hell."

"Hell is a little more painful," he said stiffly

Buffy's frown deepened. "When was the last time you slept?" she asked. Angel frowned and tried to mentally calculate the number of hours that had passed. Buffy's mouth came up in a sad smile. "That long huh?"

"What about you?" Angel spiked back, as his gaze took in the circles under her eyes. "When was the last time you got some sleep?"

Buffy grimaced. "I don't even want to think about it. Normally I can catch a couple of hours every night but ever since I dusted The Immortal his henchmen haven't let up for a second. Not to mention that Giles moved us on top of the only other Hell Mouth on the planet..."

"Did you say you dusted The Immortal?" Angel interrupted in disbelief.

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. "Yeah. I did it while Dawn and I were living in Rome last year. It was nice really, we did some great touristy things while we were there, and Willow totally drained his bank accounts, so that was fun too. We used the money to set up a slayer headquarters in Cleveland." Buffy sat up straighter. "Angel, why does it look like you'd be having a heart attack if you had a circulatory system?"

"Nothing," Angel lied.

"Angel," Buffy said warningly. "Don't lie to try to protect me. I'm sick of it."

Angel was still reluctant. Buffy sighed. "I'm a big girl Angel. I can handle the cold hard truth. I would have thought that you of all people would know that."

They both flinched at the host of painful memories that those words triggered. Memories of the forgotten day, Buffy's death, and the heartbreaking sewer talk from before the prom.

"I went to Rome," Angel finally answered. "I saw you with the Immortal. I thought-"

"Oh," Buffy said in realization. There was basically nothing else to say. They sat together in silence for several moments. "You still have to explain all of this you know," she told him.

Angel merely nodded.

After a few more minutes, Angel could hear from Buffy's heartbeat that she was asleep. He looked back towards Bones's office and saw Bones, Angela, Cam, Hodgins, and Spike all waiting. He sighed and shifted Buffy off of him and in to a comfortable position on the couch. He got up and walked towards the office to be intercepted by Spike.

Spike gave a crooked grin. "'ello Peaches. You've got some explaining to do."

"Could you not call me that?," Angel asked in annoyance. He looked back at Buffy. "I have to handle this. Can you...?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "No problem Peaches. Look I may still detest you, but while your here Buffy is happy. Don't screw up," he looked back at the still shell shocked scientists. "Good luck Peaches. Don't get dusted."

Angel nodded. "Right." he walked towards Doctor Brennan's office and Spike leaned against the railing to stand watch over Buffy.

He entered the office and was greeted by several moments of awkward silence. "Um... hello," he tried.

"Oh no way does that come even close to cutting it," Angela informed him. "Who are those two? And what the hell was that thing that you stabbed in the eye?"

Angel shifted uncomfortably. "It's a long story. A really long story."

"We're listening Seeley," Cam said stubbornly.

Angel shot a quick glance at Doctor Brennan. There was no way on earth or out of it that her rational brain would ever be able to cope with the real story. Cam and Angela wouldn't get it either he knew. Why should they? His life was painful and confusing to him and he had _lived _it. Hodgins would start rambling about government. In all likely hood, they would try to get him committed to a mental hospital, which meant that it was time for some creative lying.

"The people are named Spike and Buffy. Spike is an old, well not exactly friend. Buffy is someone very important to me. I've known them both for about eight years now." Hope is a strange thing. No matter how futile it is, humans still find it in their ability. Angel would have thought he would know better given how most of what he hoped for ended up in pain. However, the knowledge didn't stop him from hoping that the squint squad would just let it go.

"How did you meet?"

"What the hell was the giant squid thing?"

"Wow hold on," Hodgins said. "Eight years ago you would have been still working for the bureau."

"Eight years ago I had just gotten back from being a sniper," Angel lied. The time stamps basically added up. He would just have to hope that no one checked to carefully. "I have no idea about the squid thing, and now if you'll excuse me, I have to go." Angel left before any other questions could be thought of.

Cam, Hodgins, Bones, and Angela watched him walk away. All of them were thinking different thoughts but Doctor Brennan's were the only ones that were voiced. They were also the only ones that really mattered at that moment.

"He's lying."

Cam turned towards her. "How can you tell?"

Bones shrugged. " I've known Booth long enough to recognize the physical signs of when he lies, and he just did."

"Well then their's only one thing to do," Hodgins said. They all turned towards him. "Find out what the truth is."

* * *

"So how did it go?" Spike asked with a grin.

"Well I'm not dusted and they don't think I'm insane," Angel answered.

"So you lied through your arse," Spike inferred.

Angel shrugged and leaned against the wall next to Spike. "I guess you could try calling it creative truth-telling."

Spike scoffed. "A lawyer answer. You sure Evil Incorporated didn't rub off on you a bit Peaches?"

Angel glared at him. "Why don't you do something useful, and tell me what happened after the battle?"

Spike looked at him incredulously. "Do you really not remember anything?"

Angel shook his head. "I remember killing the dragon and fighting. The next thing I knew, I woke up here in a hospital bed with a head full of memories about the life of someone named Seeley Booth. Who apparently worked at the FBI. I had this vision from the Powers That Be before waking up that this is something they wanted me to do."

Spike whistled. "That's quite the tale Peaches. Well, after you killed the dragon, the slayers showed up. After that, things started looking up. We killed off most of the hell army. When the battle ended none of us could find you. We looked for ages but we had to clear out. Me, Gunn, Illyria, and Wes went back to Cleveland with Buffy and friends. We've helped keep the Hell Mouth under control. Buffy and I were tracking Big Squidy when we got zapped through a portal to here."

Angel nodded and absorbed that information. He was still watching Buffy and listening to her heartbeat. It was unique, always beating a bit faster than a normal humans.

"She cried for a week," Spike told him. "She tried to hide it but I could smell the tears."

Angel let his head knock back into the wall. Had he been human, he would have had a concussion. "I just keep screwing up her life don't I? I hurt her by being too close, and I hurt her when I tried to get out of her life."

"Thus going down as the stupidest thing you have ever done in nearly two and a half centuries of doing stupid things," Spike said in his typical blunt fashion. "Why in the bloody hell did you do that anyway?"

Angel looked at him strangely. That last comment had pretty much convinced him that Spike had finally lost the fragile hold he managed to keep on his sanity. "You _were _there for when I turned into Angelus weren't you? Or was that just your equally as crazy, and annoying doppelgänger? In case you somehow missed it; I made it my personal mission in life to brutally kill, torture, terrorize, and maim, anyone in her life! And, that was before I tried to suck the world into hell. That's not really the kind of crap you can fix with chocolate and flowers."

**Hey hey don't take my credit. **Angelus scolded indignantly.

"And that she forgave you and loved you anyway just what? Escaped your notice?" Spike said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. He watched Angel clam up and sighed. "Jesus mate. I swear our lives are more dramatic than bloody Passions! Look, I know you left so she could have your retarded fantasy about what her life should be like, with sun and kids and all that,"

"Yeah I did," Angel cut him off. "I can't give her a normal life, or anything a normal girl would want."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah fine. But did you ever stop and think about the fact that Buffy doesn't want any of that? Look at the facts mate, you left so she could have a normal relationship, and the only long-term ones she has in nearly five years are with Captain Cardboard and me. Does that scream, 'I want a normal relationship with sunshine and daisies' to you? Because if it does than you really need to get your hearing checked."

Angel used his normally reaction when he was swallowing large pills of information. This reaction was to go dead faced (no pun intended) until the information had been processed. His thought processes had always had trouble moving at the correct speed when he was in close proximity with Buffy. There had actually been several times while they were dating where he had had to simply suspend all other thought until she had left his presence.

Spike let him think. He idly wondered where he could find something to drink. As a vampire it took him a lot longer for alcohol to effect his systems. No circulation meant that the alcohol didn't actually do a lot of spreading. When Spike had first found out how long it would take him to get drunk he had nearly massacred an entire French town before deciding he would rather stay in and test the theory.

The two vampires just stood together watching Buffy sleep. After a moment a thought occurred to Spike. "Is it creepy that we watch her sleep?"

"I'd prefer to think of it as obsessively protective," Angel answered.

Buffy woke up at that moment and stretched. She turned over to find both vampires watching her. She smiled slightly. "You know, I'm having trouble deciding whether or not I think that's creepy and stalkerish or just obsessively protective."

"At least it's not just us," Spike said.

Seeing Buffy's look of confusion Angel stepped in, "I'll explain later."

"You've got more than just that to explain mister," Buffy told him sitting up on the couch and gestured towards the empty spaces. "Both of you sit and tell me what I've missed."

"Yes mother," Spike mocked.

Buffy stuck her tounge out at him. Angel and Spike sat down and explained what had happened while she was sleeping. When they were finished Buffy looked at Spike. "You haven't told him?" she asked.

"I thought that was down to you pet."

"Tell me what?" Angel asked nervously.

Buffy looked back at him. "Well apparently, if at first you don't succeed in getting any recognition from the higher powers for saving the world, try it another eighteen times, eventually you'll get a reward."

"Buffy," Angel gritted out between his teeth. 'What happened?"

"Well to make a long story nice and short;" Buffy started nervously. "Me, Faith, Willow, Xander, Kennedy, Anya, and Giles all got immortality and your soul is permanently bound." She rushed out. She watched Angel for a reaction. "Angel say something."

"You are immortal," he pronounced carefully.

"That's the part of that rant you picked up on?" Spike muttered.

Buffy ignored him. "It's turn offable though. We can all choose to keep on aging if we want to but for the time being I'm 23 forever. Now on to the subject of how your soul is permanent and how you should be happy about it..."

She was cut off by Angel hugging her. She enjoyed it for a moment before she really needed to breathe. "Um... Angel need to breath."

Angel loosened his grip to let her breath for a moment before kissing her hard. Buffy responded immediately. She felt her entire world slip away and wrapped her arms around his neck more tightly. Fortunately, Angel did _not _have to breath. Buffy broke away when she started seeing stars and the world started tipping. She laid her head against his chest until she caught her breath. "I take it your happy about this then," she panted out.

Spike tapped his foot impatiently. "If you two could find it in your hearts to postpone this happy little snog fest until later, I think you'll find that the scientist squad is staring,"

Angel took a deep un needed breath to martial his thoughts into a recognizable order. "Right, I'm taking the day off. Spike I'll tell ou how to get to my place through the tunnel system under the building."

"What about you?" Buffy asked worriedly.

Angel held up his hand so she could see the Jem of Amara nestled against his knuckle. "A gift from the powers."

Buffy nodded and Spike sighed. "Fine. Tell me how to reach the Casa de Poof."

Ounce Angel had given directions he pulled out his cell phone and dialed director Cullen's phone number. "Hello director Cullen. Yeah it's Booth. Look, I'm going to need to take a personal day.

"Is everything all right? You're not feeling sick are you? I swear to god half the bureau has the flu." Cullen said worriedly.

"No I'm not sick."

"Alright Agent Booth. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that Angel hung up.

"Do you have any bags or anything?" he asked Buffy as they started walking towards the exit.

She laughed a little. "I got sucked through a portal. I didn't exactly get the opportunity to pack."

Angel nodded. "We'll get you some clothes later then."

"Ooo. Color me spoiled." Buffy said happily.

With that the two of them left the building and Buffy was struck dumb by her first memory of Angel in the sun.

**A/N: So how was it? I hoped I answered the demands of everyone. The squints will be having a bigger part in the next chapter as they try to work out more about Angel. I'm sorry about the spelling errors in the other chapters but the spell check on my computer was broken. I hope the explanations were satisfactory.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own them.**

While Spike, Angel, and Buffy were catching up on each others lives, back at the Jeffersonian the squints were breaking multiple rules and privacy codes to dig in to Angel's past. Of course, they saw it as back round research on their friend.

"We know Booth's background so why don't we start with the other man, Spike," Brennan mentally organized.

Angela walked over to her computer. "Well, since that's probably just a nickname and we don't have the full one, I thought it would be a good idea to run a sketch through a new program I created."

Hodgins leaned over Angela's shoulder. "How does this thing work Ange?"

"It uses algorithms to pick up any matching combination of facial features from any government and online sources," Angela explained. "When the program finds photo's it will bring up the mostly likely match."

"That is genius Angela," Cam told her.

"Yeah well, we'll see if it works."

For a few moments the only sounds in the room was the tapping of Angela's fingers on the keyboard. Once she finished entering the sketch of Spike into the program she hit enter. The computer hummed busily for a few moments before letting out a cheery, _ding!_

"Well that's interesting," Angela murmured.

"What's interesting Ange?" Brennan asked immediately.

"The match the computer picked out was found in the Jeffersonian database. It's from a collection of post-Civil War diaries. The picture the computer found was from 1896."

The picture was a black and white snap shot of a man who looked almost exactly like Spike. The man in the photo had stringy brown hair that had been gathered in to a ponytail and he was wearing period clothes and glasses, where as Spike had short bleached hair and dressed like a bicker. However, those were the only difference. Brennan couldn't even see any differences in the underlying bone structure.

Cam narrowed her eyes. "What back ground information does it give about the man in this picture Angela?" she asked.

"Quite a bit actually," Angela told her. "The diary this picture was from belonged to a woman from London named Cecily Pratt. The photo was of her son. A poet by the name of William Pratt."

"A poet?" Hodgins mocked in slight disbelief.

"Well evidently not a very good one," Angela informed him. "According to the diary he was given the nickname William the Bloody due to his bloody awful poetry." She flipped farther through the information on her computer. "The poor guy met a bad end though. He disappeared on his 23 birthday after going out to a bar. They never found his body and he was assumed dead. His mother buried an empty coffin."

Brennan cocked her head. "Did he have any children Angela?"

Angela shook her head. "Not unless they were illegitimate and Mommy Dearest didn't know about them. William Pratt was never even married."

"What about siblings?"

Angela shook her head again.

Cam caught the slightly perplexed look on Bones's face. "Oh I know that look. What's with the perplexed face?"

"If William had had children or siblings who had had children then it would have come close to explaining the similarities in bone structure, but because there is no possibility of Pratt having direct descendants then the genetic similarities are impossible to account for." Bones explained.

"That is weird," Hodgins said with feeling. "Why don't we check out that Buffy girl?"

'I ran her sketch already," Angela said. "I found out a lot more about her and all from within the last hundred years to, so bonus. All of the records from her high school got put online when a gas leak got the school blown up."

"Let's start with her full name," Cam said.

"Full name is Elizabeth Anne Summers but the name Buffy is on almost all of her records besides her real birth certificate," Angela read. "Buffy first popped up on the grid in 1996 when she burned down her school gym at Hemry High School in Los Angeles."

"Had she ever been in trouble before that?" Cam questioned farther.

Angela shook her head. "Only very recently. One day she was a typical California girl popular, rich, on the cheer team, reasonable grades, and then over the time span of about two weeks she just up and drops all of her extra curricular activities, loses her friends, and her grades became erratic at best. According to the record, the high school guidance counselor pinned the problems on her parent's divorce."

All of the scientists were silent for a few moments while they processed the information. Hodgins broke the silence by saying, "What about the next place she went to school? She can't have stayed at her old one after burning down a building."

Angela clicked through a few more links in her program. "Well, after the divorce Buffy and her mom moved to a town called Sunnydale and Buffy went to school at the public high. Oh.."

"What Angela?" Brennan asked.

'According to this, Sunnydale had the most deaths per capita than anywhere else in the U.S for almost 50 years before the whole town got obliterated in a freak accident. Almost 80% of the deaths were unexplained Angela said with a shiver.

"What else is there Angela?" Bones asked.

Angela clicked a few more buttons. "Well almost everything else is from high school records. Buffy graduated with a 3.2 GPA and a score of 1430 on the SAT which, for 1999, was pretty good. She went to UC Sunnydale but she dropped out after her second year when her mother Joyce died from a brain tumor so she could take care of her little sister Dawn."

"What about the girls' father?" Hodgins prodded.

"Hank Summers lost almost all contact with his daughters after the divorce. He saw them for birthdays and for a month every summer but that was pretty much it. He dropped off the grid completely before Joyce had even died."

"God the poor girl,"Cam murmured.

Bones had to agree with her. She knew that it was awful to lose your parents. She had to imagine that it would be even worse to suddenly have a little sister to look after a long with taking care of herself as a 20-year-old. Her brother Russ had been in the same situation. The only difference was that he had left, and Buffy had evidently stayed. Bones felt a bit of new respect for the girl.

"What about Buffy's friends at school?" Hodgins asked changing the subject. "She had to have had a few, and there had to have been a few teachers she was close to."

"High school and early college records do show a few close friends. They weren't the typical cliques either. Judging from the high school yearbook Buffy had at least one close friend from every major group during high school."

"What do you mean?" Cam asked.

"Well look," Angela said gesturing towards the screen. It showed a tall boy with dark hair and a goofy grin. "This is Xander L. Harris. He was a strong contender for class clown. Skipped almost half of his classes, never went to college, and wound up with a job as a construction worker."

Angela clicked the controller again and a photo of a tall girl with a movie star smile and curly brunet hair. Angela had recognized the girl from one of the sketches in Angel's book. "This, was his girlfriend Cordelia Chase. She was from an extremely rich family, head cheerleader, good grades, and elected Senior prom Queen."

Hodgins let out a whistle. "She wouldn't have given me the time of day,"

'It seems odd that those three would have anything to do with each other at a typical high school," Cam commented, perplexed.

"I know," Angela agreed. "And it get's weirder " she tapped another key and a photo of a shy looking red-haired girl appeared. "Willow Rosenberg was the school genius. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA and had one of the highest SAT scores in her school's history. Willow was especially good at computer science and she could have gone to any college she wanted, but, she went to UC Sunnydale with Buffy. The two of them were apparently best friends.

"So we have a hard-working trouble child, a head cheerleader, a class clown, and a teen computer prodigy," Hodgins summed up. "Now all we're missing is a band member."

Angela smiled slightly and clicked her key board again to show a picture of a boy with spiky brown hair and a slightly amused expression. "Meet Danielle Osbourne, more widely known as Oz. He dated Willow Rosenberg for almost four years. He even repeated senior year to stay with her. The two of them had basically matching grades and get this," Angela pulled up a band poster. "He was the lead guitarist for the band Dingoes Ate My Baby. He went to UC Sunnydale like the rest of him but he left and took a trip to Tibet before finishing."

"Was there anyone else that they were all close to as a group?" Brennan asked."If we can learn as much as possible about their group dynamics we can better understand how Booth might have fit in with them."

"Not really," Angela shrugged. "During college Harris started dating a math wiz named Anya Jenkins. Apparently they were even engaged, but they didn't go through with it."

"That sounds farmiliar," Hodgins muttered.

Angela glared at him but continued. "During senior year there were reports of the entire group hanging around with a girl named Faith Lehane. We don't know a lot about her because she never went to school. She was however, convicted for the murder of a mayors aid. She ran for a while before willingly going to jail. She was released on good behavior conditions last year."

"Was Buffy close with any of her teachers?" Bones asked. "I had a very good relationship with most of my high school teachers and I found them very influential."

"Only two during high school and one during college," Angela answered. "Buffy only stayed in tough with one of them, a Rupert Giles. Apparently he was the high school librarian and he worked as the curator at the British Museum. The whole group maintained a good relationship with him throughout high school and college. According to records, when you needed to find one of the kids, you could find them in the library talking with Mr. Giles."

Angela flipped farther through the teacher file. "Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, and Oz also had a good relationship with their computer tech teacher, a women named Jenny Calender until... oh she was murdered during their Softmore year." Angela looked over at the others. "Apparently she was working late one night when someone broke in. The security found her with her neck snapped. Her computer was trashed but nothing was missing. The teacher they knew during college was a psych professor named Margret Walsh, but she disappeared late into the Freshmen year of College." Angela fell silent and let all the information sink in.

"Is there anything else about Buffy?" Hodgins asked.

"Not much," Angela said. "She was awarded Class Protector at her prom."

Cam frowned. "I didn't think Class Protector was given out at most proms."

Angela shrugged. "I didn't either, but apparently the committee at Sunnydale High decided to make an award for it."

No one had anything left to say after that. Angela was flipping idly through pictures from the prom. All of the standard photos for prom king and queen were there. Pictures of couples under a flowery arch were included with young couples dancing. Angela managed to pick out several pictures of people from Buffy's group of friends but strangely few of the actual girl.

Angela flipped through a few more photos before the next one made her blood freeze. "Oh my god."

"What Angela?" Brennan asked immediately.

"I think I just figured out how Booth knew these people," Angela breathed.

She pulled the picture up on the main screen. "Oh my god," Cam echoed.

The photo showed a slightly younger Buffy in a pale pink dress dancing with Angel, or to the scientists Booth who was wearing a tuxedo. Buffy's face was mostly hidden in Angel's chest and her eyes were shut. Angel had one arm wrapped around her waist and the photo showed that they were each holding one of the others hands. Buffy's free arm was draped around Angel's neck. Angel had his head resting on top of Buffy's and his eyes were facing down so they hadn't been captured by the camera.

"That would definitely connect Booth to the group if he was this romantically involved with their leader," Bones said after a moment.

"Has anyone noticed how much older than her Booth looks?" Hodgins queried.

"He looks the same as he does now, to me," Cam said casually.

"Well that same looks an awful lot older than Buffy does in that picture." Hodgins argued stubbornly.

Bones was thinking quickly. "Angela, when were these pictures taken."

"1999. Why Sweetie?"

"Can you pull up a picture of Booth from some point in the last 4 years?" Brennan continued, ignoring Angela's question.

Angela complied. Bones looked at the screen carefully. To her there was no denying it. There were subtle differences between the Booth's in the photos. Not big ones, they looked like two photos of the same person taken at different points in time.

"And this picture was taken _after _1999?" she checked. Angela nodded. "Can you pull up a photo of Booth from the weeks after his coma?"

Angela complied again. "Sweetie, what are you doing?"

Bones frowned. "These two photos are the same in terms of bone markers," she said pointing to the photo from Buffy's prom to the photo of Booth just after his coma. "This photo of Booth from before the coma is different."

"Different how?" Cam checked immediately.

Bones turned to Angela. "Run the photo of Booth after the coma through your aging program and advance it by about eight years."

Angela did it. "Oh my god," Hodgins said.

With the photo aged forward, the faces were exactly the same. "The photo of Booth from right after the coma is physically at least eight years younger than the Booth from before it," Brennan explained.

"How is that possible?" Angela breathed.

Bones shook her head in confusion. "I have absolutely no idea."

**A/N: So how was it? I felt like there needed to be a chapter to make the squints more central to the story. Review for me!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Look at the other chapters if you really care that I didn't write this.**

"A portal to D.C? Sweet B!" came Faith's voice down the phone.

Buffy rolled her eyes slightly. She had spent the last ten minutes on the phone telling Faith what had happened. "Did you not here the part about old vamps resurrecting themselves?"

"I heard the part about finding Angel and him having a permanent soul," Faith said, completely ignoring the doom-and-gloom part of the conversation. "How _is _that going for you by the way B?"

Buffy flushed bright pink. "It's going just_ fine_ Faith,"

"And he got jammed into the life of an FBI agent? Those powers will never just let us live our lives will they?"

"Amen to that," Buffy agreed fervently. "Moving on from that a bit. How soon can you get down to D.C?"

There was the sound of a zipper being pulled over the phone. "I already packed," she said. "It will probably take me five hours. If I break speed laws, closer to three." There was another voice in the background on faith's end. "What Willow? Hold on a second B."

Buffy sat back and idly started humming the Jeopardy theme tune while she waited. She could vaguely hear Willow and Faith talking in the background. The rest of the house was silent. It was around 4 o'clock in the afternoon and Spike and Angel were using the time to sleep. Buffy thought that it was kind of cute really. Both vampires napped a bit like kittens, especially Angel since he had curled up on a chair in a patch of sun.

"Hey B! I'm back!" Faith said over the phone. "I'll be there in 5 seconds," then the phone clicked off.

Buffy grabbed the phone tighter. "Faith? Faith? Faith!"

"Hey B," said the girl's voice from behind her.

Buffy let out a scream and dropped the phone. Angel started and fell off the chair. "What? Who? Monster?" he asked sleepily. He turned towards Buffy. "Buffy?"

She was about to answer when Spike came stumbling in wearing sweat pants and a gray tee-shirt carrying a battle-axe. "What needs killing?"

Faith grinned and plopped down in a chair. "Nice digs A-man. Hey Spike."

Angel woke up more fully. "Not that it's not nice to see you Faith. But what the hell are you doing in my apartment, and how the hell did you get in?"

Faith grinned wider and kicked her feet up on the coffee table. "Well I was going to drive up anyway after B told me about vamps re-rising, but then Willow told me she had found this spell to teleport people and I figured it would be much faster."

"Right," Angel said blinking.

"So there is nothing to kill?" Spike checked.

"No," Buffy assured him.

"Bugger," he grumbled. "I got up and everything. Wake me up when you've found me something to pulverize." With that remark, he shuffled back to the guest bedroom.

"Will do handsome!" Faith called after him. She turned back to Buffy and saw her raised eyebrows. "What? I'm thinking of going on a date with him sometime."

Angel made a sound that would have been remarkably similar to choking if Angel had needed air.

Faith saw this and grinned wider. "What? B seems to find dating you plenty enjoyable. I thought I might see what the fuss is about. Not to mention that it marked her as a bit of a rebel, and that fits me just fine."

Buffy held up her hands in defeat. "Hey! Your romantic life, your choice." She considered for a moment. "Actually you two could be a good couple. You can share the biker-punk-rock look, and he's a good height for you."

"Aww! Thanks B!"

Angel blinked several times. "Alright, I'm going back to bed while you two catch up. Wake me up when the sun's down," he pulled himself away towards his bedroom and fell back on his bed where he promptly fell back asleep.

Buffy and Faith chatted and got caught up for almost two hours.

"Hey, is there any food around here?" Faith asked as she went over to check the fridge. It was full of blood bags and a few jugs of pigs blood. "Oh, guess not," she filled up a glass of water. "You know Buff, if we're both going to be here longer term we are going to have to do _something_ about the fridge."

"Yeah," Buffy said slowly. "Vamp residence. Not exactly stocked on ice cream and peanut butter."

"We need to remedy that."

Buffy checked her watch. "We also have to go wake them up. You wake up Spike I'll wake up Angel?"

Faith smiled slowly. "Does it matter how I do that?" she asked as they both stood up.

Buffy shrugged. "To wake up Spike? Do whatever you have to." She stopped suddenly. "Just don't kill, or torture him or anything."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Faith said virtuously.

Buffy smiled and left to wake up Angel. She walked in to find him fast asleep. She shook his shoulder gently. "Angel, Angel, time to get up." Angel grunted but didn't wake up. Buffy rolled her eyes and shook him a little harder. "Angel. Angel!" she flicked him in the forehead. "Wake up!"

Angel's eyes opened and he smiled sleepily up at her. He took her hand and pulled her down to sit next to him on the bed.

Buffy cuddled up to him. "Hello to you to. Did anyone ever tell you you sleep like the dead?" she teased.

"Once or twice." he murmured before kissing her lightly.

Buffy pulled back reluctantly. "We have to go dust bad guys."

"Uh hu," he answered without making a single attempt to move away. He kissed her again.

"Um... bad vamps, kill, soonish" she murmured.

Angel groaned and stood up pulling Buffy after him. "Sometimes I think we should just hold a web cast and tell everybody to wear more cross jewelry. We would have som much less to worry about," he said as they headed back towards the living room.

"Well hey look on the bright side," she told him. "We won't ever have to worry about people who buy jewelry at Forever 21. That store sells more crosses than the church does."

Angel looked at her blankly.

"Popular store?" Buffy tried to tell him. "You know what, never mind, 4 out of 5 average guys don't know what Forever 21 is."

At that moment Spike came out into the living room followed by Faith. Faith was grinning while spike was grumbling blackly and putting on his jacket. Both Buffy and Angel decided that they didn't want anymore details. Angel grabbed his leather duster and the group left for the closest cemetery.

* * *

Back at the lab the squints had decided that they needed more information before pulling an all out confrontation. Bones decided that she would go to check and see if Booth was home to try and ask a couple of questions.

As she approached the apartment and heard voices. On instinct she followed them and listened.

"I don't _want_ to know how you woke Spike up Faith," came a voice that Bones recognized as Buffy's. The only Faith she could think of was the girl Faith Lehane. She was left wondering when exactly the other girl had turned up at Booth's apartment

"Oh come on B! What do you have a problem discussing girl stuff in front of the guys?" said a girl's voice that Bones deduced had to be Faith which was confirmed a minute later by Buffy shouting her name in an annoyed, embarrassed voice.

"Okay okay," Faith grumbled. "We'll talk about it later when we get to the cemetery. We'll make the guys leave and we'll have a chick talk."

"I can hardly wait," Buffy said sarcastically.

"If you want, me and the great Poof will leave now," Suggested Spike's voice helpfully.

"You are going no where," Buffy shot back.

"Damn," he muttered

Brennan had to smile slightly. The three argued like they had known each other for a long time and weren't afraid to be crushingly honest. Although, the talk about the cemetery was slightly disturbing. Why would Booth and his friends be going to a cemetery at 6 o'clock at night.

"When we get to the cemetery Buffy and Faith can take one half. Spike and I will take the other," Booth's voice said.

Buffy laughed. "Oh no. I think Spike and Faith need to go together." Spike made a small sound of protest. "What?" Buffy said innocently. "A nice date would do you two good. Back me up here Angel."

"Um, I agree?" Booth's voce tried weekly.

Bones heard Buffy sigh. "I love you Angel. But in this case, your useless."

"You roped me into it!" he protested.

Brennan frowned. Why would Booth respond to a different name? All four of them were starting to load into Booth's SUV. Bones decided to start backing away but she must have made some type of noise. All four people froze. Bones heard a sound that seemed very disturbingly like sniffing.

"Oi! Peaches!" Spike called in a voice pitched below the octaves that humans could hear. "I think your lady scientist friend decided to come talk with you."

"Shit," Angel swore, at the same volume. "Go on to the cemetery. I'll take care of this and meet you there in a little bit."

Bones tried to quietly leave and go back to her car. It failed miserably. Angel could hear the birds fluttering their wings in the trees hundreds of feet away. He could hear one scientist trying to move across pavement 20 feet away. Angel slipped around silently behind Bones and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

Bones let out a small scream.

"Hey calm down Bones it's just me," Angel told her. "What are you doing out here at night? There are a lot of wierd people around."

"I was looking for you," Bones told him bluntly.

"Yeah I got that," Angel said exasperatedly. "What I'm asking is why ."

"I went to your house to find you and I heard you talking as you left. I was hoping I this couldn't wait until tomorrow."

"Well why don't you talk to me on the way towards the car on the way back to_ your_ apartment," Angel said, tugging her efficiently back towards her car. Angel generally liked the anthropologist, but the sooner she was back inside a human dwelling where a vampire couldn't enter the better. His apartment didn't count as a human dwelling because there hadn't actually been a human living there for a while.

"I wanted to know more about these people and about the being that showed up in the lab today," Bones told him as they walked. They reached the car and Angel opened the door for her."

"Look I told you already," he answered irritatedly. "Buffy and Spike are people I knew a while ago. I have no clue about what the enormous squid was. The only thing I know about it was that it's slimy, had teeth, a shit load of tentacles, and could be killed by a semi large combat knife through the eye."

"While technically correct I don't feel as though it is an honest answer," Bones commented.

"Well it's the truth, so sorry Bones, but your just going to have to drop it," with that Angel shut the door of the car and turned around quickly. He was gone before Bones even had time to try to reopen her door.

She moved her feet to start the car, but stopped when her foot nudged against a small object. She frowned and leaned down to pick it up. On closer inspection the object proved to be a wallet. It wasn't hers so she had to assume that it belonged to Booth.

On a sudden impulse she flipped open the wallet. A photo came fluttering out of the fold of the wallet and Bones turned on her car light to better look at the photo. It was a coloured snap shot of a group of 5 people taken at night. The people were standing in the light of a street lamp. The photo showed Booth, or actually Angel, standing with a women Bones recognized as Cordelia Chase. It also showed a tall thin man with large spectacles, a petite women with wispy brown hair, and a large black man with a shaved head.

Brennan flipped over the photo and saw that there was writing on it. It was written in thin, slanted, old-fashioned writing that looked vaguely like Booths. It read: _Wes, Fred, Gunn, Angel, Cordy. Angel Investigations 2001._

intrigued Bones looked into the back pocket of the wallet and found one more folded photo. Bones opened it and pressed out the creases. It showed Booth smiling down at a tiny baby wrapped in a blue blanket. In a more loopy, messy writing it said: **_Angel and Connor 3 months._**

She flipped open her phone and dialed Angela's number. "Hey Ange? We need to talk. I found something about Booth."

**A/N: Dun dun dun duuuuuu... cliff hanger! Don't worry, I will continue. How did you like faith showing up? I thought it would be an interesting dynamic. Review for me!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: No**

"This is adorable," Angela sighed at the picture of Angel and Connor.

Bones nodded. "Flip it over,"

Angela followed the order. She frowned. "Angel and Connor," she read out, then frowned. "But this is a picture of Booth."

Brennan nodded again and handed over the group photo. Angela turned it with out being asked. "Do you see the bit on the back where it says Angel Investigations? I was hoping that maybe you could find it on the computer and get back to me later? I have to get back to work."

"Of course Sweetie," Angela said. She turned around and began typing on her computer as Brennan walked away. The computer beeped and Angela looked up. "Wow," she breathed.

The website had a background of skyline. The white font proclaimed: _Angel Investigations. We help the Hopeless! _Below it there was a phone number and a business address. Angela hit a few buttons. The page refreshed. The background was still the same, and so was the main message. There was a new phone number and a new announcement. It read; _New place of business! Hyperion Hotel!_ Below it there was a picture of an old fashioned building. The address was also there.

Angela refreshed the page again and the basic contact information changed again and yet another new announcement was posted. _Angel Investigations has now taken over Wolfram and Hart. _

Angela really wasn't sure how to react to that. She ran a quick search for Wolfram and Heart.

The website was sleek and professional looking. Their was only one recent video and Angela clicked play. It looked mostly like an add for the law firm.

"Wolfram and Hart is the most well respected law firm in L.A!" said a cheery male voice. The screen showed a bunch of Lawyers all dancing around like they were at a party. "Our lawyers are great people! Sure we work for a few strange clients, but our new C.E.O is taking Wolfram and Hart in a new direction!"

Angela gasped as the shot showed an image of Booth sitting at a large, high polished desk. He looked extremely uncomfortable and strained. "You don't kill we won't kill you," he said seriously. Then he gave a very awkward, very strained, amile. The screen went dead.

Angela stared in stunned silence for a few moments. She called up a meeting with Cam, Bones, and Hodgins. Once she had shown them what she had found they had no clue what to make of it either.

"That's not the only news for today," Hodgins said with an excited expression.

"What do you mean Hodgins?" Cam asked.

"Well when Ange found that diary with a photo of that Spike guy it got me thinking. So I gave one of the people in the document department a photo of Booth and asked if their where any pictures or diaries that had him," He answered.

"Did you find something?" Brennan questioned impatiently.

Hodgins took an old leather bound journal from his large lab coat pocket and held it up for them to see. "This is a diary written by a wealthy Irish merchant named Neil O'Connor in 1783. In it he mentions his 27 year old son Liam. There was a sketch of him inside that, minus a few physical details, almost exactly matched our favorite F.B.I agent."

"You can't think that it's Booth!" Angela exclaimed. "He would have to be like 257 or something!"

"Just listen to how O'Connor talks about his son, okay?" Hodgins said.

They all nodded for him to keep going so he opened the diary and began to read.

"_I have reached my wits end with Liam. He spends all of his time drinking and making trouble with friends of his in the village. I don't know where he went wrong. He could be a successful manager of the trading industry if he put in half an effort, for he is well educated, and well mannered. He could charm his way into heaven it's self with his fine words if he chose despite his bastard like acts. However I find myself thinking that he would be more likely to make a mockery of god for his own amusement. The only person who he ever shows a care for is sweet little Kathy. He shuts out all others with sneers jibes, and jokes, but for her he is all kind words and laughter. He dotes on her with expensive presents and cheerful laughs. Kathy will never be bothered by any soul if they wish to hold off their inevitable meeting with their maker being brought about by Liam's hand. Kathy goes to him for comfort when she is upset, and he is always there when she has a bad dream, no matter how long he has been out drinking. He spins stories for her of elves, and other magic creatures. Liam can weave the images of tales so brightly that I find joy in listening to them even when I have never found them amusing before hand. He spins his stories in a voice so fine as to make Angel's jelouse. In fact Kathy calls him Angel, and for her, he truly seems it."_

Hodgins stopped reading and lowered the journal. "Same face, same nick name. Now you have to wonder; How is it possible that they can pop up over two centuries apart."

Brennan considered quickly. "Did Liam O'Connor have any children?"

Hodgins shook his head. "A few months after this entry, the diary ends. According to the death surtificates I found, Liam died on October 23 from massive, unexplained blood loss. The rest of his family was found brutally murdered in their home the night after Liam was buried. In fact, the entire town of Gallway was completely masacared." He looked back up at the others. "Not one breathing thing was left allive."

Cam frowned. "If all possible carrying genes from the entire town were wiped out, than that leaves no chance that Booth is just some distantly related family member of this Liam guy."

"It would appear that way, yes," Bones replied.

Angela massaged her temples. "Oh god, this whole thing is making my head spin. What in the hell do we do now?"

"We continue to act as normal until a more logical explanation can be provided," Bones said adamantly. With that she spun and left the office.

* * *

Buffy, Angel, Spike and Faith were relaxing at Angel's appartment. The micro wave beeped and Buffy went p on tip toes to open the door and pull out the mugs that she had placed there earlier. She walked back into the living room and began to pass them around.

"For the sarcastic Brit we have a nice cup of AB positive. For the dark and broody one we have O-. And for the slayers we've got Swiss Miss hot cocoa," she finished.

"Cheers Pet," Spike said giving a mock toast.

"Thanks be," Faith said licking up a miny marshmellow.

Angel gave a slight half smile but he still felt a little awkward. No matter how long they dated for, he had never been totally comfortable with the idea of Buffy microwaving his blood.

Buffy smiled back and curled up on the sofa next to him. The entire group just sat for a bit, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing that the world was safe for another night because of them. Hey, if the universe wouldn't through you any type of party, the only thing left to do was through a minnie one your own. Even if it only consisted of lukewarm beverages.

Suddenly they all felt a tingle rush through the air. There was a bright flash of light and when it cleared, they could see a tall lanky teenager with brown hair lying coughing on the floor. All four warriors had jumped into attack position but had yet to make a move.

The teenager got to his feet and brushed off his clothes. "Funny how that never gets old," he muttered.

"Jesus Christ!" Angel exclaimed.

"Oh come on dad," Connor said sarcastically. "We both know you're not exactly god."

Angel stepped forward and folded his son in a quick hug. Connor returned it briefly before pulling back. "Connor what the hell are you doing here?"

Connor quirked an eyebrow. "You didn't honestly think I'd just stay behind and miss all the fun? You've known me long enough to know how teenagwers think." Connor turned to Buffy as a thought struck him. "That reminds me Buffy, Dawn should be here in about-"

He was cut off by another flash of light as Dawn appeared, coughing violently. Connor pulled her up gently and thumped her on the back.

Once Dawn could breath again she squealed. "Buffy! I've never been to D.C. and this place is amazing! And Connor was so awesome about convincing Willow to let me come to!" She gave her older sister a tight hug and then bounced back.

Buffy blinked for a few minutes to process. "We need to teach you kids about knocking," she finally said. "I feel sure you know the theory."

Connor shrugged. "Raised in hell remember,"

Angel looked guilty for a moment but Buffy just rolled her eyes. "That excuse doesn't work for everything, and it is never to late to learn. If you don't know about knocking then Spike wil teach you."

Connor glanced at the blonde vampire. Spike gave him a tiny wave. "Fine, I know about knocking," he muttered. "Where can Dawn and I drop our stuff?"

"There's a second guest room down that hall," Angel said gesturing. "we can set one of you up on the pull out couch out here."

"I'll take the couch," Connor volunteered immediately.

Dawn beamed at him.

"Well that's everything sorted then," Spike said. "Everyone will have some where to stay. Oi! Peaches junior."

Connor raised his eyesbrows at him to continue.

"No one else is planning on popping in unexpectedly are they?"

"Not that I know of."

"Right well," Spike said clapping his hands. "I'm off to bed then. Coming?" he asked Faith.

"You bet," Faith said with a grin.

The two of them left.

Dawn turned towards the group. "Well that brought up some mental images that I _really _didn't need."

The rest of the group was rather inclined to agree with her.

Buffy yawned and stretched. "Well I think I'm going to turn in to." She smiled at Angel. "I have a bunch of your money to spend tommorow. Do you want some help to set up Dawn?"

Dawn nodded and the two sisters left. "You know, Willow did pack your clothes," Dawn told Buffy.

"I fifgured she would," Buffy said with a nod. "But it's been soooo long since I've had time to take a shopping trip."

"Amen," Dawn agreed.

"Well you should come with me! I think Faith is coming to. We can have a girly day." Buffy suggested excitedly.

"Are you sure Angel can afford all three of us using his credit card at once?" Dawn asked concernedly.

Buffy bit her lower lip. "Angel is loaded," she said finally. "Literal zillionaire. He had tons of money when he was growing up human, and Angelus kept it. That money has been collecting interest for, like, two centuries."

Dawn made a high pitched squeal and hugged Buffy. "Oh my god! This totally explains his clothing style! I wondered how he made enough money for the silk shirts and the leather pants!"

Buffy laughed. "So I guess I'll take that as a yes on the shopping."

* * *

Angel heard the squealing from the living room and figured that Buffy had probably invited Dawn shopping. He had learned that there were only one things that could make a girl squeal in that high pitched of a voice, and that thing was free clothing and or jewlery.

"Something made Dawn happy," Connor commented as the two of them set up his bed.

Angel nodded. "Being around you makes her happy." he said evenly.

Connor stiffened. "I don't know how to answere that."

Angel nodded. Once the bed was set up he moved towards the hallway, and his bedroom. When he got to the door way he stopped. "Look, I know I'm not a great person to give advice, but if being near Dawn makes you happy then for god's sake don't wait. I waited, and it went to shit. Don't make that mistake."

Connor was silent for a moment before nodding. "Thanks."

Angel nodded and turned to leave. "Oh and Connor?" he called.

"Yeah?"

"Don't fuck up." With that cheery sentiment he went to change into an old FBI tee shrt and a pair of sweatpants and then went to his bedroom.

He found Buffy sitting up in bed flipping through a photo album she had found. "Hey," she greated.

"Hey," he slipped into the bed next to her. "What are you looking at?"

Buffy snuggled into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. "Just this photo album I found. I didn't know you kept so many photos."

"I didn't," he explained. "Fred and Cordy went around the whole hotel one week grabbing any photo they could find. They did a whole sort out and put everything in time order. Then they made this." He flipped to a new page. "These are my photos."

Buffy smiled as she recognized some of the photo's. There was one of Angel, her, Willow, and Xander all at the dance after she had defeated the master. There was also a picture Angel had taken of her a few weeks before her prom. She was standing in the sunshine smiling happily. There were other photos she recognized and some that she didn't, but she recognized that each one was significant to Angel. She brushed her fingers lightly over a picture of Angel holding Connor as a baby.

"Connor looked like that?" she asked smiling.

Angel smiled to. "He was great as a baby."

"He's pretty great now when he want's to be," Buffy pointed out.

"He certainly thinks Dawn is nothing short of royalty."

"You noticed that to huh?" Buffy said as she reached out to put the photo album on the bedside table.

"Kinda hard to miss," Angel told her. "They've been here for a half an hour and a blame man would be able to tell he worships the ground she walks on."

Buffy laughed. "You're laughing," Angel said seriously. "But trust me, I know how that goes."

"Must be something in the genes," Buffy mused. "Me and my little sister falling for you and your kid. Maybe we're just cosmically compatible."

"That would be the nice kind of magic," Angel murmured quietly.

Buffy smiled back at him as she flipped off the bedside lamp. "Could you imagine if they got married? I would essentially be both Connor's step-mom and sister in law."

Angel shuddered as he realized that she was right. If Connor and Dawn got married than he would be both a Father in-law and a brother in law.

"I guess that is kind of of the wiggy," Buffy agreed shivering with him.

Angel mulled over some thought's in his head. "That's probably something we could start planning,"

Buffy looked at him questioningly. It was dark but Angel could still see it with his super natural eyesight. "A wedding I mean," he explained. "I understand if you don't want to go there but-"

"Angel shut up," Buffy said cutting him off with a long kiss. "My gorgeous, mysterious, rich, amazing, creature of the night, love of my life, boyfriend basically just asked me to marry him. You need to quit worrying for a little while, and just bask in happiness of my aura."

Angel gave one of his rare, full out smiles. To him a conventional merrage wasn't really necessary. The cresent shaped scar of his fangs on her neck was basically the only marriage that he needed. Vampires formed marriage bonds through blood like they formed all others. But it was something important to Buffy, and he wanted her to have it.

"Should I send you pictures of rings tommorow?" Buffy asked excitedly.

"No need," he answered.

"What do you mean?"

He took her hand and brushed his fingers along the cool metal of the claddagh ring on her finger. He had given it back to her after he had landed on it on the drop back from hell. "When I gave this to you, do you remember what I said?"

Buffy nodded. "The hands are for freindship, the crown is for loyalty, and the heart is for love," she said remembering the exact words he had used.

Angel nodded. "And when you where it with the heart pointing in, it means you belong to someone," he said echoing his own words. "In my time in Ireland, if a man gave a women he was courting a claddagh, it meant they planned on getting married."

Buffy was silent for a moment. "And you didn't tell me this bit of information when you first gave me the ring because..."

Angel kissed the ring lightly. "I had to get rid of the judges arm. Knowing that you knew would have made it that much harder to leave. I planed on telling you when I got back."

Buffy accepted this answere. "My mom might have been a little peaved if I had come home from my 17th birthday party engaged to a guy she had met once as my history tutor I guess." She leaned over and kissed him before pulling a way enough to talk. "Still, that was one of the happiest nights of my life. It was only the morning that sucked."

Angel shifted so that Buffy was lying on top of him. "I will be trying to make up for that for the rest of my existance," he vowed.. craning his neck to kiss her again.

Buffy forgot everything else and just let her thoughts wash away with the sense of total contentment she felt. Angel's tounge brushed lightly against hers and she threaded her fingers through his hair. Angel wrapped his arms more tightly around her and enjoyed the feeling of her increasing heartbeet against his chest. It was a feeling he never wanted to go without.

When oxygen became absolutely necessary Buffy pulled back a few inches and rested her forhead against his. When she had enough breath to speak she said, "Why not start with tommorow then?"

Angel pulled her mouth back to his for a seering kiss as his answere.

When morning came, it found the couple curled together wrapped in eachothers arms. Both holding on like they would never let go.

**A/N: Get with the reviewing! What do you think of Dawn and Connor showing up?**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: This fic would not exist if I owned anything on the shows.**

When Brennan walked into the lab the next morning she was feeling tired, irritable, and confused. To tell the truth, the irritability mostly stemmed from the confusion. It wasn't a feeling that she was particularly used to, and she wasn't very good at dealing with it. Bones was hoping to find Booth walking towards her with a case file, or at least to show up. If he did it would give her the ideal opportunity to work some things out. She may not have had Booth's gift of getting people to answer questions during interrogation, but she was fully prepared to drill Booth with questions and information until he finally broke down and answered her.

She was disappointed however. The lab's only occupants were the normal scientists and doctors. Sh held out hope that Booth would show up, but as the day wore on, she began to feel doubtful that he would be showing up that day. Finally she broke down and asked Cam.

"Sorry Doctor Brennan. But according to Director Cullen Booth took a personal day today," Cam explained to Bones.

Bones ground her teeth together. Well fine then! If Booth wouldn't show up at the lab to talk to her, she would just have to pay a visit to his house. Once she finished her work for the day at around 2 o'clock she left the lab and drove to Booth's.

When she reached his front door she hammered on the door for several seconds before it was wrenched open startling her. She found herself staring at a teenager with unruly brown hair and blue-green eyes. He was wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants.

"_What. In. The_. _Hell. Is. So._ _Fucking. Important." _Connor enunciated carefully, with venom dripping from every word.

Bones was struck dumb. She couldn't find the words she wanted. She had been so shocked by the boy's appearance that she didn't know what to do.

Connor on the other hand, wasn't feeling at all uncomfortable. He had learned some manners since coming back to hell, but to him, the next course of action was fairly simple. Give this strange woman another 30 seconds to explain herself, if she was threatening proceed to strangle, if she was none threatening, slam the door. Either way he would get to go back to his nap.

Bones was still trying to find her thoughts and Connor checked his watch. 22 seconds...

"Connor?" Booth's voice called. "Who are you talking to?"

Bones's mouth gaped open. This boy _couldn't _be the baby from the picture. Booth would have had to have been no older than 17 when he was born.

Connor rolled his eyes. "If I knew I would have told you."

Angel reached the door feeling slightly worried. Connor wasn't exactly a welcoming person. In fact he could be down right unnerving to most people, especially those who weren't used to him. He saw Bones standing there and jerked immediately into a more aware state. He immediately recognized the problem of the situation and tried to work out how to solve it. "Connor go back inside," he said calmly.

Connor started to protest but was cut off by Angel's low growl off, "Now!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going," he muttered he stepped back through the door and Let Angel go out of it before slamming the door hard enough to shake it slightly in it's housing.

"What do you want Bones?" Angel asked tiredly.

"Who was that?" she asked. He opened his mouth to answer but Bones cut him off. "And don't try to lie to me because his physiognomy matches your's almost exactly.

"Okay," Angel agreed.

Bones crossed her arms over her chest dumbfounded. "That's it? Just okay?"

Angel ran his hands distractedly through his hair, making it stick up even farther, and shrugged. "I don't know what else you want me to say. You didn't need an answer to that question, I don't see why I should have to give you one." His toan was even and cold.

Bones felt even more irritated now. "Booth. You have been lying through your teeth since these people showed up. Probably even for longer. The rest of us have checked and your past doesn't make any sense! Now I am your partner, quit the lying, and give me some fucking answers!"

Another growl spread it's way up Angel's chest and out through his throat. He knew that it was breaking with who Booth was, but he couldn't help it. Angel had _never _liked taking orders. To much in his life wound up completely screwed when he did. Liam had never taken orders because he hated his entire family. And if anyone had ever tried to give an order to Angelus, then they would be lucky if the least that happened to them was a snapped neck.

Angel was to tired, stressed, and basically pissed off to control his inner demon. All of his self-control was currently being channeled into keeping his face in its human form.

Bones took an automatic step back. The sound coming from Booth's throat was more than unnerving, it was down right bone chilling. And the light behind his eyes wasn't the normal cheerful light that lit Booth's face. Her body felt like nitrogen was being poured into her blood stream. Everything in her body was telling her to run.

"Have you ever considered that I might not be giving you answer's because I don't think that you would ever in a million years believe me," he hissed. "Your life is logical Bones. Everything about it is in neat little boxes. Your world is centered on rational order."

"I am aware of this," she told him.

Angel stopped her from going farther. "Yeah well, that's the dream world Bones. In the real world, in my world, almost nothing works the way _you_ think it does. You think you know about evolution, believe me you don't know about half of the things in this world. The things that go bump in the night."

He backed away. "The way my life works isn't rational Bones. It's chaos, and it's dangerous, and it's painful, and it's fighting, and it's every single god damned day, but that's how it works," he took a deep breath and shut his eyes to avoid looking at Brennan's confused expression. It made it easier to shut down Booth's voice screaming inside his head.

He opened his eyes again and sighed. "Your life is safe Bones. All wrapped up in little boxes, and if you take my advice, you'll keep it that way," He leaned back against his door. "If you decide you want to jump head long into a world where reality is up side down, logic is twisted, and rationality is pretty much screwed then come back. If you like the world your way, then I will back you 100%, and you will stay the hell out of my personal life."

He opened his door and walked back inside.

Bones heard the lock click. She was now even more confused, and more than a little bit scared. The way Booth had acted was nothing like how he had ever acted before. It was like someone else was talking through her friend's mouth.

On the other side of the door Angel slammed his palm hard in to the door before leaning his head against it. He breathed deeply several times. Having conversations like that one were hard enough when it was just him. They were damn near impossible when he had two additional voices echoing through his head. Angelus was laughing and making congratulatory comments on the harshness of his words. Booth on the other hand was shouting at him to get the hell back out th door and apologize.

"Angel?" Buffy asked softly. "Are you alright?"

Angel gritted his teeth and nodded without looking up.

Buffy could see the tendons straining in his neck and jaw and moved forward. She rubbed the knots very gently. Angel let out a slow breath and tilted his neck to give her better access. Buffy took his hand and guided him over to the couch.

They sat and Buffy pulled his head into her lap to continue massaging his jaw and neck. She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Liar," she murmured. "I can tell when you're in pain."

Angel sighed. "It's getting worse," he murmured. "Inside my head is getting worse."

"How do you mean?" Buffy asked gently.

"I can hear Angelus, and Booth inside my head," Angel explained. "Angelus I can deal with. He's always under the surface. But this other guy, he's a whole different person. Angelus is different, he's literally just another part of me."

Buffy made a quite discontented sound.

Angel turned to look up at her. "You know it's true," he said gently. "You've seen it. When I fight or when I get too angry, it slips. When I get to angry or emotional, or in a truly vicious fight, then it's not my soul in control, it's the demon. And he loves it, and that's when life feels simple."

Buffy nodded. "Spike has said that too," she mused. "I feel something like that sometimes. Maybe it's not exactly the same, you guys are actually full demons, but I think the idea is the same."

He was silence waiting for more of an explanation.

"The rush when you get in a real fight. When that's the only thing in your head. Like you're alive, and unstoppable, and sure maybe it's a little reckless but it feels free." Buffy finished. "So Angelus is talking a little louder these days?" she changed the subject.

"Practically screaming," Angel confirmed. "Almost every move I make gets double commentary from Angelus and Booth. It makes it hard to concentrate on which thoughts are mine, and which ones are their's. Everything is getting jammed into my head at once and the voice is all the same."

"I guess that would happen when all of the people are basically you," Buffy agreed. "Maybe we should check out some books on multiple personality disorder," she suggested.

Angel tried to hold back a laugh, but he wound up falling. Buffy joined in with a quiet giggle. It was kind of ridiculous. What would you do? Go into a library and ask if they had any books that an ensouled vampire could consult on a multiple personality issue.

"I might have to tell them soon," Angel confided.

Buffy combed her fingers through his hair. "My mom used this saying that I think would work here, 'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' if you wind up having to explain, we'll deal." there were a few more minutes of silence. "Of course, they might just get convinced that we're nuts."

"Not wholly unreasonable as an assumption," Angel agreed.

"I bet they'd believe you if you showed them your Game Face," Buffy told him.

"Why do you call it Game face?" Angel wondered.

Buffy shrugged. "It just sounds so much better than creepy demonic visage."

"Right."

Buffy continued to rub Angel's neck and he closed his eyes. "You know," Buffy said. "We really need to teach your kid about the right way to answer the door."

"How so?" Angel asked.

"Well call m crazy but I don't think, 'what in the fucking hell do you want?' is the right way to go."

"Oh, yeah we'll work on that."

**A/N: Well? Review for me! That's what makes writing these worth it.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Joss Whedon and Hart Hanson came up with all of these characters before I ever got the chance to. In fact, I was about six years old when Bones came on, and Buffy predates me.**

Sweets had been trained to be aware of emotions in a room. He had been in some extremely tense situations, but at that moment, the atmosphere in his office was just plain uncomfortable.

Doctor Brennan was sitting tensely in her chair with her arms and legs crossed. Her body language screamed prickly, and her face was only backing it up. Her eyes were half squinted, her forehead was wrinkled, and her lips were pursed in a hard line. One of her feet was tapping impatiently.

Booth on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected by the tense atmosphere. His head was propped up one of his hands and he was staring absently out the window. His other hand was holding a small pear shaped hunk of metal he had picked up off of Sweets's desk. He was sitting almost inhumanely still. When Angel stayed in one position for a long time he could become so far wrapped in his own thoughts that the habits of fidgeting and breathing stopped almost completely.

The one major problem with this was that it was not something Booth did. In fact, the concept of sitting still and being 'lost in thought' in relation to Booth was nearly non-existent.

Angel however, had put in enough time with the solitary brooding department to not feel the need to break what other people considered to be awkward silences. In fact, it was hard for other people to tell if Angel was even effected by awkward silences.

Sweets was. "Okay, what happened?" he asked in frustration. "You two are never this tense around each other."

Angel came out of his thoughts to give a tired, sarcastic answer. "Are you worried about mommy and daddy fighting Sweets?"

**Ha ha! Nice one Soul Boy! **Angelus congratulated.

_**I'm actually with the psychotic maniac on this one.**_Booth agreed. **_That insult had a nice zing to it._**

_I'm ever so happy that you approve. Now shut up! Just because you can't see Sweets using his shrink beam on us doesn't mean that I can't._

"I asked Booth some questions about some friends of his that showed up under some questionable circumstances and when I asked him about them he refused to answer me," Brennan answered. There was a touch of an irritated whine in her voice, but she couldn't help it.

"That's because it's non of your concern," Angel said quietly.

"If something is distracting you and causing you to miss work than it _is _my concern!" She argued back.

Angel looked back out the window. "I missed two days of work when two old friends, my son, my fiancé and her sister came in to town unexpectedly. 'Cause you see Bones, some people have personal relationships with people they don't work with. Now I'm really sorry that I probably handled yesterday the wrong way, but what I said is still true"

"Wait hold on," Sweets interrupted. "Since when do you have a fiance and a son that lives out of town?"

Angel sighed, but couldn't find his way out of the situation other than to do some more lying. "I've been engaged for just over five years."

He was silent for several moments until it became clear to the others that he wouldn't be elaborating any farther without a little bit of prodding.

"And the son?" Sweets tried.

"It's complicated," Angel murmured. The only sign that he was under emotional strain was a slight tightening in his fingers around the metal pear.

Bones smacked her hand into the arm of the chair. "What is so complicated about this Booth? Why won't you answer simple questions?"

"Because the answers aren't as simple as the questions are," Angel said meeting her eyes. "Bones, I'm sorry that I didn't give you all the details about my past, but some things about my life are private, and I would like to keep it that way. And as it's my past we're talking about, it's my call on who I tell."

Bones looked at Sweets in exasperation.

"Agent Booth does have a point Doctor Brennan," Sweets told her. "As an individual Agent Booth has the right to decide who he informs about his personal past."

"Thank you Sweets," Angel said. "Now can we leave?'

"Not quite Agent Booth," Sweets warned. "While I understand that you feel the need to keep some things personal, I also understand Doctor Brennan's need for some answer's on a matter that effect's your partnership. So, here's my proposition, a trust excersise.

"Oh this should be good," Angel muttered with a slight hint of mutiny in his voice.

Sweets ignored him and continued to explain the excersise. "Doctor Brennan will ask you a question agent Booth. Then you answer with the least number of words possible."

Angel nodded reluctantly.

"Who are your friends?" she fired off immediately.

"Spike, Faith Lehane, Connor, Buffy and Dawn Summers," Angel answered automatically. His voice was emotionless and nearly robotic.

Bones ground her teeth together. All he had done with that answer was concern what he already knew. "How did you meet,"

"Fighting," Angel said stiffly. His fingers clenched even farther.

"About?"

"Time."

Sweets perked up in interest. That was an intriguing answer to give. "What about it?" he interjected.

Angel glared at him. "Continuation." Angel had perfected the art of being cryptic a very long time ago, and the words, 'bare minimum' were essentially Christmas. Angel never gave more than the minimum with answering questions if he could help it, so this wasn't necessarily difficult.

"Why did you need to fight to continue it?" Bones asked

"Death," Angel answered darkly.

"Who for?" Sweets asked. The dark tone in Booth's voice when he had said that had sent shivers up the psychologists spine.

Angel was silent for another few moments watching the sun disappear from the view of the window. "Everyone," he answered quietly. "It would have meant death for everyone."

Neither Sweets nor Bones knew where to go from there. Bones was forced to admit that Booth had been right. His answers while honest, made no rational sense.

The silence was broken by Angel's cell phone. He flipped it open next to his ear.

"Hello."

"Hey! How is my Angel?" Buffy's cheerful voice greeted over the phone line.

"Better than I was a moment ago," he answered with a small smile on his face.

"Glad I could brighten your day," she said happily. "You have already brightened mine by providing me with the money to buy some truly special items of clothing."

Angel almost laughed. "All slayer practical of course."

"Naturally," Buffy said virtuously. "The shoes I bought have lovely wooden heels. One kick from them and any vamp I hit will be floating on the breeze. Not to mention that skinny jeans and combat boots are extremely slayage practical. Plus I got something for Dawn's birthday."

"I'm glad you're having fun," he told her.

"I am. This day has made me a very happy Buffy. Faith, Dawn, and I are going to check out some bridal shops later. They're both going to be brides maids. Who's your best man going to be anyway."

Angel groaned. "Jesus, my only options are Gunn, Connor, Wesley, or, I can't even believe I'm considering this, Spike."

Buffy laughed. "That would be an interesting speech. Any bets on which story he would decide to tell."

"I don't even want to start considering that." Angel looked around the room to find that Bones and Sweets were both watching him like hawks. "I have to go now Buffy. I was in the middle of meeting with Bones and Sweets when you called."

"Say no more. Who am I to get between a vampire with Multiple Personality Disorder and his shrink?"

"Mo chroí," he answered. It was Gaelic for "My heart". The term had been popular when he had been human in Galloway.

"I'm who?" Buffy asked in confusion.

"Not a who. It's Gaelic," he told her.

"I don't speak Gaelic Angel," Buffy reminded him. He had said the same phrase a few times when she had been in senior year of high school.

"I know," Angel said smugly before hanging up.

"Was that Buffy?" Sweets asked. The half of the exchange had made him smile slightly. The calm, happy, demeanor, that had settled over his friend the minute he had heard the voice at the other end of the phone. He looked happier than Sweets had seen him ever since he got out of his coma.

"Yes it was," Angel replied. "Are we almost done here? I've answered your questions honestly, and I have paper work I need to do before I get home tonight."

"Do you have more friends you can't tell me about coming into town unexpectedly?" Bones sniped.

"If I knew they were coming then they wouldn't be dropping in unexpectedly, now would they?" Angel returned, letting just a bit of Angelus's persona pop through.

Most people didn't realize how true it was, but when Angel was feeling in the mood to be sarcastic, he could hit as hard as he wanted when it came to words. All it took was relaxing the hold he kept on Angelus, and the sarcasm came pouring helped that Booth was a generally sarcastic person as well. Combine the powers of sarcasm, and it was nothing less than impressive.

He let out a long breath and took one of Bones's hands in both of his. Bones couldn't help but notice how cold they felt. Booth's hands had always felt to warm to her before. In fact Booth had even commented that her fingers were freezing on more than one occasion. Now Booth's fingers were pale and chilled

"I really am sorry about yesterday Bones," he told her honestly. He really was sorry. Booth hadn't shut up for longer than about ten minutes at a time ever since yesterday at his apartment "If I could give you an answer you liked I would, believe me. But their really isn't one unless you want to hear everything." he gave her a sad smile. "I was serious before too. If the day comes when you are willing to listen to the answer's with an open mind, let me know, and I'll give you the entire story of my life if it's what you want to hear."

Bones was dumb struck again. "Until then, can my personal life stay personal until I feel like sharing it with you please?"

Bones nodded. She would stop asking Booth questions. She never promised that she wouldn't dig by herself. She still planned on trying to find out about his past. Her curiosity had been piqued and she wasn't about to let it go.

Angel smiled a bit. he knew that the chances of her stopping looking completely were about as good as the chances of him singing public karaoke. He turned back to Sweets. "Are we done now?"

Sweets nodded. "Yeah we're done."

Angel stood and left the room.

"Did that answer your question?" Sweets asked Bones once he had left.

"No, not really," Bones grumbled. "It helped a little, but not a lot."

"Well this isn't going to help much," Sweets commented. He lifted what had once been the metal pear Angel had been holding. It now resembled nothing more than an irregularly shaped metal disk. "Maybe Angela can work something with that."

Bones held out her hand for the metal disk and slipped it into her bag. "Thank you Doctor Sweets," she said sincerely. Then she followed Booth out the door.

**A/N: So? What did you think about this chapter? I know some people didn't like how Angel treated Bones in the last chapter so I was hoping this was a little better. I wanted the scene in the last chapter to have a similar idea to when Angel snapped and fired Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley. Please review for me! I want to know what you guys think about how the story should continue. I have some ideas but I want to hear yours so that the story can be better.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Still no**

"Awkward, awkward, very awkward," Angela said anxiously as she ran a simulation on her computer. "The amount of force required to crush a piece of metal this dense isn't achievable by anybody but a pro wrestler or someone who is seriously ripped."

"Booth is neither a wrestler or seriously ripped," Bones said. She repeated the slang Angela had used for the sake of conversation.

"Yeah, Sweetie. I know it's not possible," Angela responded patiently. "It's the only explanation that works for this level of damage though. If I only run the simulation with the approximate amount of strength that Booth would be able to use, then the metal barely caves. I had to jack up the levels nearly 23 times higher just to get the metal to bend."

"That's not the only awkward thing," Hodgins chimed in as he came into Angela's office. "Scoot over a second Ange." Angela shifted over and Hodgins pulled up a new window on the big screen. "I had my accountant look through the records for Angel Investigations."

"Did you find anything overly relevant to Booth in your search?" Bones asked.

Hodgins gestured to the main screen. "Angel Investigations was barely making enough money for it to cover it's bills," he started. "They made the payments when they were due but it was always a close call. Then they bought the Hyperion Hotel, and that should have driven them so far into the red that it was almost black."

"Get to the point Doctor Hodgins," Brennan requested.

Hodgins walked over to the screen and pointed to a highlighted section of numbers. "The point is that the payment didn't make one dent on the organization's savings. In fact every time the busyness got into real financial trouble they got a substantial amount money from an outside bank account. My guy tracked it back to the person the account belonged to."

"Which would be who?" Angela poked.

Hodgins flipped the image to a new set of accounts. "Not who, what. The payments came from a number accounts all registered to a mysterious group called The Order of Aurelius. The current leader of the order is none other than, wait for it..."

"Hodgins," Bones growled in warning.

"Fine," he grumbled. "You people take all the fun out of unveiling information. As of 1997 the leader of The Order of Aurelius has been Angelus O'Connor. We only even know that much about it because every payment from the order has to be signed off on by the leader."

Bones let her brain take a few moments to organize and connect the information she had learned. "So, now we have the connection between Angel Investigations and Liam O'Connor. Both of which have to do with someone who at least looks very much like Booth. We also have this, Order of Aurelius, which only exists in terms of one, highly exclusive, not to mention secretive bank. There is also the issue of the amount of strength Booth exhibited a log with several other strange coincidences."

"Not much fits does it?" Angela stated.

Bones frowned and let out a small puff of breath. There was no rational answers that could connect all the information she had. Normally she saw things in beautiful logical terms. Things like 2+2 = 4. Only in this case, everything still had to equal 4, and the numbers she was being forced to work with were 2 and 1 and 5 and 3. The real clincher was that the only mathematical operation she was allowed to use was addition.

She knew that Booth had told her that the real answer wasn't simple, or rational. That didn't change the fact that accepting non-rational answers was simply against her nature. Once in a while she would get close to being able to see an outside point of view, and then just as quickly, it would slip away. It made her frustrated with herself. No matter how hard she tried she just couldn't shift her way of thinking to accommodate the non-logical.

"Hello everyone," Angel called from the door of the lab. He didn't bother calling to check if the scientists were actually in the building. He could hear their heartbeats running through the air. He could also hear the steady rasp of humans breathing in Angela's office.

Angel slipped quietly into the shadows with the ease of long practise. He allowed his hearing to stretch comfortably until he could hear the conversation taking place. He shook his head in slight exasperation over the whole thing. Doctor Brennan was persistent he had to give her that. Tell the woman that she should stop looking and she only digs harder.

_Like a dog with a bone. _He mused. _Too bad this particular bone is more like a skeleton. Not even a human skeleton. This was closer to whale sized. _Angel waited for the thought to be greeted by a chorus of comments from Booth and Angelus.

_That thought was actually private? _He wondered in surprise. _What a surprise. _

**Don't get to complacent up there Soul Boy. **Angelus warned. **I still plan on making the inside of your brain a living hell. I just didn't feel like that particular sappy, poetic metaphor was worth commenting on.**

_Yeah. Because you have so much else you could be doing with all that quality time inside my head. _Angel retorted.

_**I thought it was a good analogy."**_Booth piped in. **_Think of it this way. The insane psychopath could be singing 99 bottles of bear on the wall. _**He pointed out.

**Good idea! **Angelus thought, brightening considerably at the prospect.

"Oh shit," Angel groaned out load.

**98 helpless villagers in town! 98 helpless villager! Knock one out! Drain them all down! 97 helpless villagers in the town! **Angelus sang obnoxiously.

**_Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!_**Booth thought repeatedly.

"Oh god! I think I prefered hell," Angel moaned.

"Is that you Seeley?" Cam asked. She had heard the comment while walking past the alcove that Angel had been standing in.

"Yeah. It's me," Angel gritted out. **93 helpless villagers on the wall!**

Cam laughed slightly. "Why are you back in the corner?"

**_Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!_**"I was just waiting for the official report from the last case from Bones," Angel said pleasantly. He was working very hard to not here the other thoughts swirling through his head.

"Are you alright Seeley?" Cam asked in concern. Her friend looked stressed out. Almost like he was in pain. His eyes were hard and glinting and there was a hard vain jumping at the corner of his jaw.

**Knock one out! Drain them all down... **"Fine," Angel got out. "Just a bit of a headache. And having old friends in from town is stressing me out."

"Ah," Cam said in understanding. "Killer Family Syndrome."

"You could say that," Angel agreed fervently. Almost all of his family could most definitely fall into the "Killer" category for one reason or another. Just then his phone rang.

* * *

Booths apartment. Approximately half an hour before...

Rebecca James was feeling harassed. She had to go suddenly out of town for busyness and she couldn't get a hold of Booth. She just had to hope that he was at home and could watch Parker.

Speaking of Parker, the stubborn seven-year old was being particularly difficult that morning. He was tired and cranky, and he had absolutely refused to eat anything before leaving. He had told her that he wasn't hungry and eventually, Rebecca had given up on trying to force the issue.

Now they were in the car and pulling up in front of Booth's apartment building.

Rebecca turned back around and saw Parker pretending to be asleep. "Parker get ready to go in. We're at your Daddy's," she told him

"Daddy?" he asked. Perking up immediately. He bounced out of his seat and into the building.

Rebecca sighed and followed quickly. It never ceased to amaze her how quickly the prospect of visiting his father could cheer Parker up.

When they reached the apartment door, Parker rung the door bell repeatedly. Normally Rebecca would have chastised him for the rude behavior but in this case, she was in just as much of a hurry as her son was. She simply scooped him up and held him to stop the action instead.

A moment later the door was opened by a tiny blonde women Rebecca didn't know.

"Yes? Can I help you?" Buffy asked pleasantly. She didn't recognize the women or the little boy with her, but she was generally a friendly person, unless the person she was around happened to lack human DNA.

Rebecca was taken aback by the sight of the unfamiliar face. The girl was wearing yoga pants and a tank top and there was a water bottle in her hand. She looked like she was preparing to go on a run.

"I'm sorry," Rebecca said quickly. "Parker must have gotten the wrong apartment." Rebecca leaned back and checked the number above the door. She frowned. It was Booth's door that was for sure. Maybe he had moved? She dismissed the thought at once. Seeley would have told her if his address had changed. Of course, Seeley normally informed her if he had had a women move in with him.

She took a shot anyway. "Is Seeley Booth here? I'm sorry, but I have to go on a sudden busyness trip and I can't find a sitter this last-minute."

Buffy realized the issue immediately. She remembered Angel telling her that Booth had a son, so the little blonde boy in the other women's arms had to be Parker. "Oh, I'm sorry! He had to go into work for a bit. You must be Rebecca. I'm Buffy Summers."

"It's nice to meet you," Rebecca said back.

Buffy smiled. "Why don't the two of you come in for a moment while I call him?" Buffy shifted her attention to Parker. "You must be Parker. Your daddy talks a lot about you."

Parker beamed at this. "Really?"

"Yup!" Buffy said smiling more. She leaned down a little closer to him. "Do you like chocolate chip pancakes? I just made some."

Parker leaped from his moms arms straight into Buffy's at the prospect of one of his favorite foods. Rebecca was horrified with the thought that Parker would knock the poor girl over. He probably weighed close to what she did! But Buffy just laughed out loud and shifted Parker so that he was in a more comfortable position and turned back into the apartment.

"So how do you know Booth?" Rebecca asked curiously.

"Oh um..." Buffy searched for a good believable lie that wouldn't over complicate Booth's life if he ever got back to it. "We, um... knew each other really well a few years ago. I had to come into D.C on busyness and didn't have time to book a place to stay. I ran into Booth in the air port when I got in from Cleveland a few days ago. He offered me a place to stay." There, that was good.

Rebecca nodded. She could tell there was more to the story. Way, way, more to the story. But she wasn't in the mood to push. She watched Buffy move around the kitchen to fill up a plate of pancakes for Parker. Rebecca noticed that she did it all with one hand, while the other arm held up Parker.

"What busyness are you in exactly?" she asked.

"Psychology and personal protection," Buffy told her vaguely. She set Parker down on the counter so he could put his plate on a more solid surface.

Parker frowned. "Psychology? Daddy says that's a funky science."

"And your daddy is absolutely right," Buffy agreed. "It is a funky science, but it's also important for me to know how the bad guys I protect the good guys from are thinking." She turned back to Rebecca. "Look, I know you don't know me, but I can watch Parker until Booth gets back if you really need to be somewhere."

Rebecca broke out smiling. "Oh thank you so much! Parker, I have to leave now. Buffy is going to take care of you until your daddy gets home from work okay?"

Parker nodded and gave Rebecca a hug before she left. Buffy climbed up on the counter next to Parker. "So Parker. What would you like to do while I call your daddy and tell him your here with me?"

He considered for a second. "Can I watch a movie?"

Buffy shrugged. "I don't see why not. Let's go see what we have, and I'll set it up for you."

Parker nodded and climbed off the counter. He then followed Buffy into the T.V room and looked at the selection of movies. He considered Buffy. She seemed nice and she had made him pancakes, and was setting up a movie for him, and she was important to his dad. Putting all that together pretty much made her one of his favorite people in the universe.

"Do you like Harry Potter, Parker? It was one of my little sister's favorites," Buffy asked.

"I love it!" Parker exclaimed happily curling up on the couch while Buffy started the movie.

Buffy smiled at him again. She liked Harry Potter to. It was so rare that the good guys ever won in life, that it was nice to see them win on film. She left Parker in the living room and slipped into the master bedroom to call Angel.

"Hello?" he answered immediately.

Buffy frowned. Angel sounded like he was trying very hard not to scream in pain. "Are you okay?"

"Been better," Angel answered. "My head is the battle ground for World War III and I'm waiting for a report on the death of a girl who was thrown into a garbage compactor by her fiancé, so, just an average day really."

"I think we need a new definition of average," Buffy commented. "Anyway, I called because a women named Rebecca just dropped of your kid. Or rather, Booth's kid. Apparently, she had to go away on busyness."

Angel took this opportunity to use a few choice Gaelic swear words. "Um... have food on stand by, set him up with movies, and for the love of god whatever you do keep him away from Spike, Conner, and Faith unless supervised."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Angel, you are not engaged to a moron. I just thought you should know that he's here. I thought I might come over to the Jeffersonian later and poke around. Little kids like big museums right?"

Angel examined Booth's memories quickly. "That's good. Parker loves The Jeffersonian and all the doctors here know him. Bring him over when the movie ends."

"Okay. Hey, does Tylenol work for vampires? It does wonders for me when I get headaches" she said conversationally.

Angel laughed bitterly for a moment. "Somehow I don't think Tylenol is going to cut it on this one."

"Oh well," Buffy sighed. "It would have been nice. I'll call Willow later and see if she can come up with anything.

"That might be helpful," he agreed.

"Okay, bye. I love you." Buffy told him.

"I love you too," Angel replied. Then they both hung up.

* * *

In an office in the Jeffersonian, Jack Hodgins heard the line go dead. The only thought he could come up with was. _What the hell?_

**A/N: How was it? I wanted to include Parker so there can be some funny moments later. Review for me! If you don't like having Parker involved I can make him leave. Tell me!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Um, no.**

Upon hearing the recorded conversation, Brennan, Angela, and Cam were in complete agreement with Hodgins's earlier conversation.

"What the hell?" Cam said immediately. "Hodgins, how on earth did you get this?"

Hodgins shrugged. "When all of this got started I tapped his phone."

"You don't think that might have been just a tad bit illegal?" Angela pointed out.

"Can we focus on the fact that one of our closest friends is almost definitely insane and probably always has been?" Hodgins said, changing the subject. "Hello here? He was talking about vampires! About _being_ a vampire! Like, with a serious tone of voice."

"In this case I am inclined to agree with Doctor Hodgins," Bones said. "Almost all evidence gathered from that phone conversation points towards Booth suffering from some sort of severe mental ailment. Possibly as a result of his brain tumor."

"See?" Hodgins said triumphantly. he didn't generally have people actually agree with him out loud.

"However," Bones added. "Given other evidence collected over the course of the past few weeks makes me think that the matter requires some more looking into until we can think of a more logical course of action." Her head was still spinning around in circles. Nothing that was going on made sense.

* * *

"Parker! Never, ever, walk in front of a cab!" Buffy called after the excited seven-year old. She zipped into the street to a loud sound track of blaring car horns and screeching breaks. She scooped him up easily and waved apologies to the drivers they had inconvenienced. "Don't walk in front of cars alright? Your daddy would kill me if you got run over."

"No he wouldn't," Parker told her assuredly. "You're a girl, and Daddy never hits girls." Parker, like most seven-year old boys, had yet to grasp the concept of traffic safety laws.

Buffy had a mental flash back to Faith, Darla, Drusilla, and a number of other vileness she had seen beaten, if not to a pulp, then very close to it. She decided that it probably wasn't one of the things to actually tell Parker about. "Okay, but he definitely would be very unhappy with me, and I don't want your daddy too be unhappy. Okay?"

Parker nodded happily. "Okay," he nestled into Buffy's arms more comfortably. "Can we go see Daddy now?"

Buffy smiled and nodded. "Yeah we'll see your daddy now. But if you don't mind I'm gonna carry you the rest of the way, okay?"

"Okay."

Buffy adjusted her purse a bit so she could hold Parker more comfortably and set off through the streets of D.C. She felt distinctly mom-like walking around holding Parker going to see Angel. It was nice to just imagine for a little while what it would be like to actually have Angel's kid. She knew it would never happen, and that didn't particularly bother her. She did still kill her gold-fish, but it was intriguing to imagine. Theoretically, Conner would be even younger than Parker was if he had stayed in this dimension. Almost 4 years old, Buffy felt bad that Connor would never grow up in an environment with two parents taking care of him.

She opened the doors to the Jeffersonian's lab. Right at the entrance she was stopped by a security guard a bag scanner, and a metal detector. Buffy took a moment to survey the situation. She needed to get into the building, but she had a feeling that the multiple stakes, knives, and other weapons hidden in her bag and on her person _might _raise a few eyebrows.

She shot a hopeful glance at the security guard who she probably could have killed in seconds if she wanted to, despite the fact that he out weighed her by at least 100lbs. "I don't suppose you could get access to your hidden compassion for the amount of stuff I'm carrying and just let me through could you?"

The security guard shook his head. "Sorry Hun. Everyone going into the medical legal lab has to go through a security check."

"Crap," Buffy muttered. She looked down at Parker. "Don't repeat that, okay Honey?"

Parker nodded. "I know. I never repeat anything adults say when they get annoyed."

"Good policy," she approved. Buffy then turned back to the security guard. "Look," she checked his name card. "Ted. Please, please, please could you just let us in? I swear I'm not a homicidal terrorist maniac."

"You'd be surprised how many homicidal terrorist maniacs say that," Ted said sagely.

Buffy couldn't help but agree with that. It seemed like every whack job who tried to bring on the apocalypse thought that they were the sane ones, and everyone else was crazy. It was an irritating personality trait. She tried one last ditch effort. "Would it help at all if his dad was in there?"

Ted smiled a bit. "Sorry. But unless you have government I.D. you've got to go through regular security rules."

"I have library card," Buffy tried weekly. There was no further reaction from Ted. Mentally resigning herself to the idea that she would be spending the next 20 minutes justifying all of her concealed weaponry. "Parker, you're gonna go through in front of me okay? Wait for me right in front of the security door."

"Wait, Parker?" As in Parker Booth? Seeley's kid?" Ted checked.

Buffy looked at him. "Yeah. I'm his, well, I'm his girlfriend Buffy Summers. Booth's ex dropped him off at the apartment this morning. I'm bringing Parker to see him."

Ted broke out in to a big grin. "Well why didn't you say so earlier! Booth said to expect you coming by. Everyone on the security team loves that guy! He's the only one who ever comes here without an egg head. Come through! Come through!"

Buffy laughed and stepped straight through the metal detector. The machine let out a loud beep, but Ted just laughed it off. He even took the shopping bags Buffy had procured over the course of the day.

He chatted contentedly about the work they did at the Jeffersonian and Buffy nodded and smiled. She enjoyed casual conversations about things other than her life sometimes. It was always a nice also got to hear more details about the real Booth's life. Parker cut in with occasional little comments until they reached the big sliding glass doors.

They slid open and Angel turned immediately away from the report Bones was giving him on their last victim as he sensed Buffy and Parker come in. He walked over to them and wrapped his arms easily around both Parker and Buffy.

Buffy grinned. "Well hello to you too."

"Hey," Angel said smiling back. He turned his attention to Parker when the seven-year old stretched out of Buffy's arms to wrap his arms around Angels neck.

"Daddy!"

"Hey Parker. Have you two had a good day?" The question was directed more towards Buffy, but Parker answered more quickly.

"It was awesome! Buffy made me chocolate chip pancakes, and we watched Harry Potter and then we went shopping!" he exclaimed in a rush.

Angel looked down at Buffy with a quizzical expression. "You took him out shopping?"

She shrugged. "Well he's going to be with us for a while. I thought he might like some toys. We went with LEGO's." Angel still didn't look quite convinced so Buffy took the bag from Ted to show him the box. "Nothing pointy or dangerous, I promise."

Angel gave his little half-smile. "I believe you," he looked over Buffy's head at Ted. "Thanks Ted."

Ted waved the thanks aside. "No problemo Booth. Great girl here too," he set the bags down on a small table. "You let me know if you need anything. It was nice to meet you Miss Summers." He walked back out the automatic doors.

Buffy turned back to Angel. "Nice guy. Much nicer than the last guy I knew named Ted."

Angel thought back. "That was your mother's crazy cyborg boyfriend right?"

"Yup."

Parker tugged Angel's coat. "Daddy what's a cyborg?"

"I'll explain later," Angel promised. "How about we set you up in Angela's office for a little while. You can try out your new LEGO's."

Parker nodded happily.

Angel turned around and called up to Angela. "Hey Angela! Can Parker do some LEGO's in your office."

Angela grinned. "Sure Booth," she came over as Angel set Parker down. "How are you Parker?"

"I'm good."

Buffy pulled out the bag of toys and handed it over to Angela. Angela gave her a smile. "Hey, we never really got introduced. I'm Angela Montenegro," she held out a hand.

Buffy shook it. "Buffy Summers."

"It's nice to meet you Buffy."

They were interrupted by Bones. "Booth! Can you come over here for a second? Hodgins and I are running a force test."

Angel looked down at Buffy with a question in his eyes. She smiled. "Go! I'll be fine. Save the world from killer wood chippers, and enjoy the force test or whatever."

"Why don't you and I watch Parker until Booth and Brennan are done?" Angela suggested.

Buffy and Angela left with Parker while Angel watched them go. He loved the thought that Buffy was so comfortable around the people he worked with. Almost everything about this life was making him feel content. Sure there was always the apocalypse to deal with, and spending all of your time inside the heads of the crazed psychopaths of the world wasn't exactly fun, but at least with this job everyone was still human, or mostly anyways.

He jogged up the stairs and walked over towards Bones. "What's up Bones?"

She turned immediately and led him over to where Hodgins was waiting and hooked a few force and motion sensors to Angel's clothing.

"Um, Bones? Wanna explain what this..." he shook one of the sensors slightly. "Is exactly?"

"These are motion sensors that will calculate the force you use during our test."

"And the test is?" he asked with trepidation.

"Our victim was about Hodgins size and stature. By our calculations you are the only person we know who could exhibit enough force to cause the bone damage," Bones explained as she finished attaching sensors. She gestured towards Hodgins. "Hit him, as hard as you can."

Angel just blinked at her for a moment. "Um... I'm going to go with no on this one."

"Why not?" Bones asked in confusion. "He won't get hurt."

"I'm not just hitting Hodgins," he protested.

"Booth we need the evidence."

"Bones," he hissed. "If I hit Hodgins full force I will kill him." It was a completely serious warning but Bones didn't take it that way.

"Hodgins is wearing padding. Just hit him full force."

"No." Angel said simply. When he hit things he didn't pull his punches. When it came to his type of fight it was just going to get you killed if you didn't hit as hard as you could. Angel figured it was just bad form to practice that way. He _could _pull punches, but it was extremely irritating.

Seeing that this was going no where Bones nodded over to Hodgins who lept at Angel from behind. A few things came from that action.

The first thing to take into account was that Angel had trained his instincts to the point where, when faced with a rear attack, he didn't hesitate to clear the threat as quickly and efficiently as possible. The big problem with that was that quick and efficient for Angel was completely different from quick and efficient for Booth. To start with, Angels version was approximately 3500 times faster and harder. This resulted in Hodgins's body making very hard contact with the floor before he had even had a moment to process that Angel was moving.

In that time Angel had flipped Hodgins over his back, kicked out his left knee, and dislocated his shoulder. When the fight ended, Angel was standing over an extremely winded Hodgins pinning him to the ground with a foot in his rib cage. There was a long moment of dead silence.

Angel could feel himself shaking. Angelus had been closer to the surface these days anyway, and the sudden bout of violence had brought him surging into the control position.

Bones looked at him in shock, as did Angela who had rushed to the main lab when she heard the crash. Buffy was watching to, only she understood the situation a lot better than the others did.

Bones was floored by the situation. Every muscle in Booth's body was shaking, and if she didn't know better, it would look like he wasn't even breathing. Bones blinked in confusion. His eyes looked almost like they were changing color. The normally warm brown color had morphed to a hard, feral yellow. There was a shaking tick in his jaw muscle, and over all it looked like he was fighting to control something.

Angel moved shakily away from Hodgins. Shakes ran up and down his spine like someone with a fever, and his unneeded breath was completely erratic. He felt a small, warm, hand curl around his arm, and knew it was Buffy. He followed the tug without fighting and found himself facing Buffy, She placed one hand on either side of his face so that she had to look at her.

"Angel," she said calmly. "Look at me. Forget everything else, and just focus on me." Angel took a deep breath and did what she told him to. "Good, now close your eyes. Listen to my heart beat. Can you hear that?" Angel nodded and closed his eyes listening to the steady rhythm. This was a routine they'd established when he first returned from hell. "Focus," Buffy guided. "Take your time. Center your thoughts." Angel dropped his forehead against hers and counted her heart beating He gave himself 15 beats before taking another deep breath and pulling back slightly.

Buffy looked up at him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Angel got out, his voice cracking. "Yeah I'm good now."

"Good," Buffy looked up at the scientists who were watching them carefully. "We're going to the lounge, and you are going to take another minute to get your head back together."

Angel nodded and allowed himself to be led away.

When they had gone Bones turned quickly to her computer. Hodgins got painfully to his feet with help from Angela. "So?" he asked in a pained voice. "Did we get what we needed?"

Bones frowned. "These numbers are supernatural. Logically there is no way that Booth could hit someone that quickly with that much force."

"Um hello?" Angela interrupted "Did anyone else get a little concerned over the fact that Booth just had a Jason Bourne moment? He looked like he was trying to keep himself from falling apart."

"And he's obviously done it before," Cam commented, making her first entry into the conversation. Seeing the others looking at her she shrugged. "Well, how else would Buffy know how to handle that type of situation?"

"Well one thing's for sure," Bones said. "There is a lot more to them than we know about."

**A/N: Reviews are love!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: Only borrowing the characters. Although actually owning these guys would definently be interesting.**

Buffy sat on one of the couches in the lounge and pulled Angel down to sit next to her. He went easily, and without protest. Angel placed his head against Buffy's collarbone right above her heart. Buffy combed her fingers gently through his hair and waited until Angel felt like talking. The silence was easy and comfortable. Buffy knew that if Angel wanted to talk then he would. If he didn't want to talk, then pushing it wouldn't help.

Angel let his eyes fall shut and allowed himself the temporary luxury of shutting down his brain. He suspended other thoughts and simply tried to relax the muscles in his arms that were still trembling from the amount of control he was exerting to keep his own thoughts in the front of his mind. Angel refocused on the steady beat of Buffy's heart and let it fill his ears completely. The reassuring sound along with the feeling of Buffy's fingers in his hair made him relax, and a low humming sound, a vampire's version of a purr, rumbled through his chest.

Buffy let out a quiet laugh. "I'd forgotten you did that."

"What?" Angel asked warily.

"Purr," Buffy explained, still giggling a bit. Angel's purr died as he opened his mouth to protest, but he was cut off by Buffy. "No! Don't stop. It's adorable, like a big cat. I love cats"

Angel settled back more comfortably against her. "Why didn't you ever have one for a pet?" he asked curiously.

Buffy shrugged slightly. "I kill goldfish, remember? I was never at home enough to take care of a pet," she considered for a moment. "There were some at Rest Field though. There were these three little kittens who were always wondering around, I used to bring them treats and things when I patrolled."

"We could always get a cat now if you want one," Angel offered. Buffy was silent so Angel considered. "We might be here for a while, and now with all the activated slayers, and all of our friends. We might actually have time to take care of a pet."

There was a bit of a silence again as Buffy continued to comb her fingers through Angel's hair. Angel began to purr again. "I think," Buffy started. "I think I would like a cat."

Angel took one of her hands in one of his and kissed it lightly. "Then we'll get one," he promised. "Tomorrow we'll go to the shelter."

Buffy smiled happily until a thought occurred to her. "You're not allergic to them right?"

Angel burst out laughing. "I've been technically dead for over two centuries. I highly doubt any allergies are hanging around after that long."

The two laughed a bit, and that was how Angela found them. Sure, she was worried about what Booth had done to Hodgins. The expression on his face had terrified her. Booth looked like he was trying to control himself, like he was in danger of loosing his grip on a ledge. His eyes had even looked, yellow, or something. Buffy had acted like she had seen it happen before and like it wasn't scary. She had just stepped forward and proceeded to calm Booth down, and it had worked. Something was a little strange to her about the method she had used, and now she wanted answers.

Angela saw Buffy and Angel together and stopped to watch for a moment. Booth had his head nestled against Buffy's collar-bone, and they were both smiling like they had just shared a private joke. Buffy was combing her fingers through Booth's hair, and if Angela didn't know better, she could have sworn Booth was purring. One thing Angela knew for sure, they definitely were _not _just old friends.

She cleared her throat once to get their attention. "Yeah hi. Sorry to interrupt."

Angel straightened up. "Is Hodgins alright?" he checked anxiously. He was feeling guilty about the amount of force he had used on the entomologist. He was pretty sure he hadn't hit hard enough to cause any permanent damage, but it hadn't really been something he was concerned about at the exact time.

"Yeah he'll be okay," Angela answered. "His shoulder's dislocated, his knee might have been fractured, and four of the ribs on his left side are racked and possibly broken," she looked Booth over carefully. "Damn you don't pull punches do you."

"Bad practice," Angel muttered.

"Who are you practicing to kill?" Angela asked in bewilderment. "A SEAL team, or The Rock Johnson? 'Cause from the bruises on Hodgins either one would be dust."

"Only if they were vampires," Buffy said casually. She was sick of dodging the constant questions and bids for information. "Damon's just go all gooey and then you have to shovel the gick into someplace it won't be found." She sighed, "Evil is so inconsiderate. They don't work 9-5 hours, they _never _pay for dry cleaning, and they always leave you to clean up there messes."

Angel knew exactly what Buffy was doing. The sooner the scientists started believing the truth the sooner he could stop lying every few minutes. "That's why I always wear black, demon stains don't show up."

"Really?" Buffy asked in vague surprise. "And here I was thinking you were just clinically depressed."

"Wait," Angela said throwing her hands up to stop the banter. "What the hell is wrong with you people?! You're talking about demons and vampires! Are you both completely nuts?"

"I wish," Buffy said. "The mental hospital was pretty mellow compared to my daily life," she tipped her head sideways. "There was pretty good food to."

Angel's brow furrowed. "When did you go to a mental hospital?"

"Oh, my parents had me committed a few months after I became the slayer," she said airily. "I tried to tell them about vampires. They didn't take it very well."

"Oh," Angel said.

"You are both completely insane!" Angela squeaked and started to back away. She needed to call a mental facility stat.

"Stop," Angel commanded softly. He locked his eyes with hers to make the thrall completely effective. Angela tried to struggle but she found herself routed to the spot. Her body didn't seem to want to listen to her brain.

"Come and sit down," Angel continued. Angela did as she was told and then Angel broke eye contact. "That really does make me feel more like Dracula every time," Angel muttered.

Buffy grinned and snuggled into his side. "Dracula's clothes were so much worse though. Just never use that on me."

Angel gave a rare grin. "I wouldn't have to use a thrall if I really wanted you to do something."

"What are you talking about?" Angela interrupted, feeling slightly panic stricken.

"Okay," Buffy said. "I'm only going to explain this to you once so listen up. Vampires and all those other monsters you read about and watched in horror movies are real. I am the Chosen One mark one so I'm basically destend to kill the baddies. Most of the time my life completely sucks because I never get a day off, and I _never _have time to shop."

Angela turned wide eyed to Booth. "What about you Booth? How do you work into this, this freak show!?"

Angel winced slightly. Angela's voice had skipped up several octaves when she talked, and the pitch had done nothing to sooth his sensitive eardrums. "Um, first, can you lower your voice a little? It kind of hurts. Second," he gestured at himself. "Booth? Not me. You might say, Booth has left the building. Only, in this case he's still very much here, just not actually him." Angel looked hopefully at Angela. "Does that make any sense to you?"

"None at all!" Angela exclaimed.

"Damn," Angel muttered. "247 and I still have no clue how to explain this."

"Let me," Buffy offered. "Angel looks exactly like the guy you know as Booth but he's actually Angel a vampire. He used to be an evil sadistic killer but now he has a soul and he's a good guy not to mention my fiancé. Don't worry Booth is still available, it's just that Angel isn't. Lets make that clear. We were both destined by The Powers that Totally Suck to save the world, kill bad guys, suffer for the greater good, yada yada yada." The same Powers that totally Suck pulled Angel out of an apocalyptic battle and shoved him into your friend Booth's life." Buffy looked at Angela's stricken expression, "Any questions?"

"Va- va- vampire?" Angela stuttered out.

Buffy and Angel looked at each other and came to a private understanding. Angel vamped out and reluctantly and let Angela take in the sight. Angel opened her mouth in speechless shock and tried to form words, but she couldn't even work up to a scream.

Angel let his face slip back into it's human form and tried to analyze Angela's expression. "Do you want some water?" he tried weekly.

"This," Angela said slowly. "Is a lot to process. God, I can't believe it. But, your face," she stared at Angel. "This is real isn't it? It's not just some crazy dream?"

Angel shook his head with a sad smile. "I'm afraid not."

Angela combed a hand through her hair. "So you really are a vampire named Angel and Booth really is just, jammed into your head."

"Pretty much."

"How is that working?"

"Painfully," Angel answered with gritted teeth. "Pretty much everything I do get's a full commentary from Booth and Angelus."

"Who's Angelus?" Angela asked in confusion.

"His crazy vamp alter ego. Like Hyde to his Jeckle," Buffy explained.

"What about Spike and Faith?" Angela asked. Now that she had an explanation she was building up steam. "What about Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, Rupert Giles, Charles Gunn, Winifred Burkle, Anya Jenkins, Wesley Windham Price, your sister Dawn Summers? Who, or what are they?"

"Uh..." Buffy considered. "Going in order we've got another vampire with a soul and major personality issues, my sister slayer, the most powerful witch in existence and my best friend, just a human, my watcher, a demon hunter, the goddess Illyria, an ex-vengance demon, my ex watcher, and the key to hell," Buffy finished. "That's the cliff notes version."

"Oh God," Angela muttered. "I can't believe I'm buying this it is so ridiculous."

"But you are buying it," Angel murmured.

"Brennan never will," Angela commented.

Angel shrugged. "What Bones believes is her choice. But, if she keeps digging she'll find records that won't add up with other explanations. Their were cameras invented for a lot of the time I was alive, and I wasn't exactly worried about covering my tracks as Angelus. Demons gain power over others through terror. It was bad for the reputation if you hid the slaughtering you committed."

"Did you," Angela swallowed. "Did you have a reputation?"

Angel shifted uncomfortably. "A little."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "They named you The Scourge of Europe. You are still known in lots of circles as the demon that other demons dare not speak of. That's more than a little."

"Fine," Angel relented. "I was a sadistic, mass murdering, bastard. There was literally nothing good about me."

"Not you," Buffy reminded him quietly. "That was all Angelus. And he had a few slightly redeeming qualities. Good fashion sense for one, not to mention a profound sense of sarcasm."

"That makes everything so much better," Angel muttered.

They were interrupted by Buffy's phone ringing. "Hello?"

"Hey B! Can you ask the door man to let us through without the security check? i really don't want to have to explain having enough weaponry between the four of us to support the revolt of a semi-large African nation." Faith's voice said over the line.

"Hi Faith!" Buffy greeted. "Just put Ted on the phone and I'll take care of it."

"Kk! Thanks B." There was a quick silence and Buffy heard the phone get handed over.

"Hello Miss Summers," came Ted's voice.

"Hey Ted! Look the people at the door are friends of mine and Booth's. Can you let them in without the security check?"

"Sure Miss Summers. They'll be there in a moment."

Buffy grinned. "Thanks Ted," then she hung up and turned to Angel. "Spike, Faith, Dawn, and Connor are all coming in."

"Good," Angel said with a nod. "They can help us convince the others. Let's just keep them away from Parker, he doesn't need that type of mental scaring."

Angela's brow furrowed. "Is Parker your kid or is Connor your kid. And if Connor is your kid how is he walking around? He has to be what three?"

"You got the pictures out of wallet," Angel realized. "To answer your question, Connor is my son, Parker is Booth's. Connor was kidnapped by my friend when he had a panic attack over an altered prophecy and gave him to a man who hated my guts for killing his family two centuries ago. Holtz raised Connor in a hell dimension. He left as a babby," Angel broke off. This particular story was always hard to tell. "He was gone for three months, and he came back 18."

"Wow," Angela said quietly. "That must have been hard."

"it was even harder when he locked me in a coffin and threw my into the ocean," Angel muttered distractedly.

"Not one of my finest moments," came Connor's voice as he approached with Faith, Dawn, and Spike. "I see we're starting to tell people."

Buffy shifted over to make more room on the couch. "Hey don't be all doom and gloom. Angela already believes us."

"You believe this?" Connor asked Angela skeptically.

Angela rubbed her temples. "it probably means I'm crazy, but yes, I do."

"You are definently crazy," Dawn confirmed sitting down in the seat next to Angela. "We all got born into this crap and you bought it in twenty minutes? Are you on drugs?"

"Nope," Spike told her plopping down in a chair with faith. "Can't smell any drugs Nibblet, she's just plain out bonkers."

"Then again so are we," Faith said with a big grin. "Welcome to the family Arty girl."

Angela groaned at the sudden headache she was struck with. "Why is that so completely un reassuring?"

**A/N: So? What did you think? I thought Angela would be the most likely to believe the truth so I started them off by telling her. Review for me!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: Uh... lets see here. That would still be no.**

Doctor Brennan walked into the lounge to find everyone but Hodgins and Cam chatting happily. There were two girls she didn't recognize along with Connor. Connor was a puzzle to her, his physical features so closely matched Booth's own that they could only be either brothers, or father and son. If you went by the picture she had found then it would be safe to assume that Connor was in fact, Booth's son. However, that would have meant that Booth was about 17 when Connor was born, and that made no sense. Also, she had compared Parker's features to Connor's, and for the most part they didn't match. That meant that the mothers would have been different people.

The younger brunette who looked very similar to Buffy, and Brennan guessed had to be Dawn summers was perched on the arm of the chair Connor was sitting in and chatting to Angela about art. Connor himself was listening to Spike who seemed to be telling some sort of story while Booth tried to make him shut up. He was having trouble because he had to talk to Spike across Buffy and another girl with dark hair and makeup. They seemed to be in deep conversation over something.

She cleared her throat and everyone stopped talking. "Hello," she said. She was greeted with absolute silence. "Booth, are you going to introduce me?"

Angel didn't look up. He was a little preoccupied with trying to strangle Spike without squshing Buffy and Faith. The two slayers may have had super strength, but that didn't change the fact that he still out weighed each of them by at least 50lb's. Angel had also gotten used to people calling him by his actual name. This made it a little more difficult for him to remember to react to his fake name.

"Booth!" Bones called again. There was still no reaction.

Seeing the issue Buffy shifted slightly in her seat and drove her elbow into Angel's rib cage. It wasn't a lethal hit by any standard, but it definitely got his attention.

Angel's head snapped up. "Oh, hey Bones. What's wrong?" he said this without removing his hands from Spike's neck. Spike scrabbled at Angel's hand but Angel was his sire, and that meant he was a whole lot stronger than Spike. He wasn't in danger of asphyxiation, that hadn't been a concern for him in over a century, but it was uncomfortable to have that amount of pressure on his throat.

"Nothing is wrong with me," Brennan said mildly. "However, I do believe that your friend may be in danger of choaking."

Angel looked back at Spike. "Who? Him? He's fine, believe me."

Spike took advantage of the momentary lapse of focus to pulll his neck free. "I'll get you for that ya bloody wanker!" he spat out.

Angel looked back at Bones. "See? No worse than his general annoying self."

"You tried to choke me ya great poof!" Spike said irritably.

"Don't tell my kid about the Russian countess," Angel said calmly.

"Damn!" Connor muttered. "I wanted to know how that story ended."

Spike perked up but Angel growled low in his chest. "Don't you dare," he warned.

Spike puoted a bit and Angel turned back to Bones. As soon as he had turned around Spike turned back to Connor. "I'll tell you later Junior."

Angel sighed. "Faith, punch him for me."

Faith shrugged and ramed her fist into Spike's shoulder.

"Ow! Bloody hell Love!"

"Thanks Faith," Angel told the brunett slayer.

"No problem A-Man."

Bones cleared her throat again and Angel turned back to her. "Yes Bones?"

"You were going to introduce me to your friends," she reminded him.

"Right," Angel said. "Bones, this is Connor, Faith, and Dawn. Connor, Faith, Dawn, this is Doctor Temperance Brennan," he had pointed to each person as he had named them.

"Temperance?" Dawn asked. "Jeez did we all draw the short straw on the 'normal baby name' bag?"

Connor raised his hand. "Um, my name is pretty normal. Unless it means something in Gaelic that no one remembered to tell me about." There was a slight caughing sound from Angel. Connor groaned. "Okay, out with it. What does my name mean Dad?"

"Wise," Angel told him. For now he would leave out the fact that if they had been using his human last name then Connor's full name would be Connor O'Connor. It just seemed better not to go there.

"Wisdom, Temperance, Angel, Angela which means angel, Dawn, and Faith. Aren't we all a hopeful bunch," Connor mumbled.

"I guess it only really proves your hypothesis when I tell you Spike's real name was William," Angel murmured to himselfe. Everyone stared at him.

Bones saw her chance to come into the conversation. "In most cultures William means soe version of protector."

"Oh hell," Spike moaned. He hadn't wanted anyone else to know the meaning of his name. "At least you all know why I changed it now."

"Very true," Faith agreed. "Don't worry about it Honey. Spike is much better."

"Much better than Liam anyway. At least my name didn't mean Gaurdian! Protector is a lot better that that!" Spike grumbled.

"Watch it," Angel warned. His voice was quiet but definitely not short on menace.

Bones froze. The name William with Spike's face hit a recent memory. She remembered the picture Hodgins had found in the diary the other day. About how the man William Pratt had mysteriously died from massive, unexplained, blood loss. She looked over at the person she believed to be Booth. The name Liam also matched information that she really didn't want to consider. They had found a photo and a diary entry that had referred to a Liam O'Connor. Who, come to think of it, had also died of sever, unexplained blood loss. there was also the name Angel, which all of these people seemed to think reffered to Booth.

Finally she had had enough of the cut off sentences and cryptic hints and warnings. Bones felt like everyone else besides her, Hodgins, Cam and Angela knew what was going on. Now it looked like even Angela had been put into the loop! Bones couldn't escape the pressing feeling that everyone else knew something she didn't, and Bones _hated_ not knowing!"

"Alright! I'm done!" she fumed. "Someone just tell me what I don't know about this situation!"

Everyone else was silent for a moment in surprise. Finally Angela cleared her throat to speak. "Bren Sweetie," she said quietly. "I don't think you're going to believe what they have to tell you. I barely believed them, and lets face it, I'm a little bit more open minded about this kind of thing than you are."

Bones stamped her foot. "I don't care how all of you will think I will react. I am highly intelligent and I know my own mind! Now I want to know what's going on!"

The others all glanced at eachother. With the exception of Angela, each individual knew each of the others well enough to know the basics on what any given person was thinking at any given moment. Bones waited impatiently for them all to come to an agreement. Looks were shooting all around the group. Eventually they came to a silent agreement and Angel spoke.

"Fine, I'll tell you," he tugged Buffy closer to him on the couch. With his other hand he rubbed his forhead to try and alleviate some of the headache he was experiencing. Booth and Angelus both had very loud, very differing opinions on the situation, and it was becoming extremely difficult to block tham out _and _mainain his own train of thought. "Get Hodgins and Cam as well. They'll want to hear this, and I don't want to have to tell the story twice."

* * *

When everyone had assembled and was sitting comfortably, Angel shifted forward. "It's difficult to know where to start," he said awkwardly.

"How about at the beginning?" Hodgins suggested iritatedly.

"it's not that simple with this," Buffy told him. "There are a lot of different beggings that could work for this. My begining was at Hemery High in L.A. when I was 15 and a guy named Merrick walked up to me and told me to go with him. Dawn's and Connor's begginings are about three years ago and frankly their origins are way to wacky to start this with. Faith came in to the picture 6 years ago and Spike's grand entrance for this little play was about 1906. Angel started back even further."

"Then start with that," Cam said.

"When I start with that depends on which version of this story you want," Angel said. Once again demonstrating his remarkable affinity for the cryptic.

"What are the choices?" Hodgins said skeptically.

"Try thinking of it like a book," Dawn suggested. "We have the summary that goes on the back, the major plot points version, the cliff notes version, the super abridged version, or the Wikipedia plot summary version."

"I'd pick the Wikipedia version," Connor advised. "You get the general idea, plus everything important, but you get to skip all of the gory, painfull, uncomfortable details."

"That seems like it would yeild the most satisfactory results," Bones decided.

"Alright," Angel said quietly. "But please remember that this will sound crazy, so please hold off on trying to commit us all to the nearest mental hospital until we've finished and answered some questions."

Everyone nodded.

"It started 247 years ago in a resonably sized town called Gallway in Ireland," Angel began. "A wealthy family had there first child, a son who they named Liam Jonathan O'Connor."

He was cut off by Connor. "Hold up!" he said indignantly. "Are you honestly telling me that you consciously named me Connor O'Connor? I've excepted that you don't exactly have all your marbles together but _come on._"

Angel rolled his eyes. "Can we worry about your legal name later Connor?" there was a silence for a moment before Angel got back to his story. "So, skipping 27 years of drinking and bringing shame down on the family, Liam was walking home one night when he was pulled aside by an American woman dressed like nobility. She promised to show me a whole new world through different eyes. Being the idiot I was, I agreed. Next thing I knew, I was crawling out of my own coffin."

"Wait you?" Cam interrupted. "You honestly expect me to believe that you were born 247 years ago and died before coming back? What are you telling us you are exactly? A vampire?"

"Wow," Faith said in vauge surprise. "That was way quicker than I thought."

Buffy was in agreement. "Leeps of logic do seem to be getting leepy just a little bit quicker now a days."

"Can we finish the explanation and muse over things later?" Angel asked. No one said anything more. "So, about 123 years passed during which time I caused complete carnage, I sired Spike and Druisilla. Drusilla is dead. With my Sire Darla, we decemated Europe. To put it kindly I was a vindictive, manaicle son of a bitch."

"You had fun though," Spike commented. "There was this one time in Spain-"

Angel glared at him and he stopped talking. "Then," he picked up the story again. "I fed on the wrong girl. A gypsy who was about 16. She was dumb as a fence post, but she was pretty, and a clan favorite. Well, as it turns out, gypsies have a bit off a vindictive side. They restored my soul."

"Hold on," Hodgins cut in. "Even if this is real, how would getting back a soul be a punishment?"

"Souls are what most people call a conscience," Buffy explained. "When you become a vampire your body gets invaded by a demon and your soul chechks out. In most cases permanently, but Angel and Spike both have theirs back. It's a punishment because most demons don't care about everything they've done. For Angel, he has the memories of everything Angelus has ever done, and he has to care."

"I guess I can see how that might suck," Hodgins conceeded.

Cam looked at him in shock. "You actually believe this?"

Hodgins shrugged. "it connects all the dots."

"Anyway," Angel started again. "I went to Los Angeles and suffered for about 90 years until a messengers for The Powers That Be named Whistler came and told me that I could do something. _Be _somebody. He said he had something to show me, and he drove me to Hemery High school."

"Enter me to the picture," Buffy chimed in. "That day I was called as The Slayer. _One girl in all the world. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. _Once one would die, the next one gets called. Merrick was my first watcher. Watchers train and protect Slayers, or rather they did. When he died, my parents divorced and my mom moved the two of us to Sunnydale. Which turned out to be a magnet for all the mystical baddies. That's wear I met Willow, Xander, and my new watcher Giles. I also met Angel, everything was pretty awesome for a while, I only died the once."

Angel stepped in again. "Then Spike and Druisilla showed up to ruin it."

"Happy to help ya Sire," Spike said in a mock helpful voice.

He was pontedly ignored.

"There was some major bad and we almost died on the night of my 17th birthday. Angel and I had both almost died multiple times in the one night, and we were all majorly emmotionally strung out. We had been dating for a while, and we loved eachother, and then things well twisted a bit."

There was silence for a minute. "What happened?" Cam asked quietly. She was begining to accept the story. No one was actually crazy enough to make up a story like this.

Angel swallowed. "There was something we didn't know about my curse. There was a loop hole."

"Which was?" Hodgins asked.

"One moment of true happiness and the wankers soul went poof!" Spike chimed.

"Thanks Spike. Real helpful," Angel said sarcastically. "Longish story shorter, I reverted back to being a homicidal psycopath."

"In a big way," Buffy said. "He tried to suck the world into hell. I stopped it, and Willow restored his soul, but to save the world I had to send Angel to hell."

Everyone looked at Angel. "I came back," he supplied weekly.

"So, we all stopped some apocolypses. Faith was evil for a bit before I put her in a coma. Then Angel went to L.A. to get redemption. He had Connor with Darla who he killed before she got resurected by an evil law firm. Connor got raised in hell and came back 3 months later as an 18 year old."

"I feel like my part of this story got really cut down," Connor commented.

"Did you _want _me to go into your psycopathic phase where you locked me in a coffin and threw me in the ocean?" Angel said evenly.

"No," Connor decided. "That bit can stay left out."

"That's what I thought."

From that point it took about another half hour to explain their lives. Dawn, Faith and Conner had slightly smaller sectons, but between Spike, Angel, and Buffy, they got the story told. They finished with how they had all wound up in D.C. They also told what they knew about Angel's situation. They only left out the more perssonal details of the stories, like what exactly Angel's version of perfect happiness was.

"So," Faith said, cracking her knuckles and stretching. "Any questions? 'Cause, if not I'm gonna hit the sack."

Her comment was greeted by absolute silence.

Spike brightened. "Is that a no then?"

**A/N: So? How was that chapter? I care about what you think here! I'm practically a shrink at this point!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: If I owned these characters then Buffy and Angel would have gotten back together by now and David Boreanaz would be spending a bit more time shirtless. Sadly I don't own these guys, so Buffy and Angel will stay separated, and David will unfortunately be staying fully clothed. **

**Unless we get really lucky... **

"So, vampires, as in fangs, blood, Dracula vampires, are real?" Hodgins double checked.

Angel and Buffy grimaced slightly at the Dracula part. "The bloody little tosser," Spike muttered. "The wanker still owes me 12 pounds and that's without interest charges."

"You've played cards with Dracula?" Connor asked with interest.

"And I bloody well beat him to!" Spike seethed. "I swear, if I ever find that little git-"

"Spike's personal vendetta aside," Angel interrupted. "Vampires do have fangs, we do drink blood, and as regretfull as it is, Dracula is real too."

Bones sat forward a bit. If everything they were saying was supposedly true, then she had found a few holes in their story. "If you and Spike here are vampires, then why can't we see fangs? And, how can you both be out and functioning during the day?"

"Vamps can hid their real faces," Faith explained. "I think you'll also notice that Spike and Angel aren't exactly Energizer Bunny's while the sun is up."

That punched a hole in the small raft of logic that Doctor Brennan was still trying to hold on to in the vast river of chaos that her perfectly ordered world was dissolving into. "What about the sun?" she asked stubbornly.

Angel took a quick check to make sure he wasn't siting in the sun and slid the Gem of Amara off his finger and showed it to them. "The Gem of Amara," he explained. "It makes the wearer invulnerable if they're a vampire. I destroyed it once, but the Powers that Be decided they didn't want me to be a human torch." He slid the ring back into place at the base of his finger."

"What did you mean about hiding their true faces?" Cam asked Faith.

Faith prodded Spike in the ribs. "What are you waiting for Champ? Show the woman your pearly whites."

Spike shrugged and made his face shift. His normally pale blue eyes changed to a glowing, feral, yellow with slit pupils. Spike's normally smooth forward and nose furrowed with the deep lines of a demon. His normally straight teeth sharpened and extended into jagged, razor-sharp points. "Ahh..." he breathed in relief. "I haven't gotten to show game face in so long. It's a load of stress off my facial muscles."

"Really?" Buffy said curiously. She turned to face Angel. "You never mentioned keeping normal face was actually hard before,"

Angel shrugged. "For me it isn't. It has to do with the person you were before the demon came, and what your demon is like. As Liam I may have had a quick temper and I may have been a pain in the ass, but I always had control. I was violent, but I always was in control of the violent actions. Angelus is vindictive, bloodthirsty, masochistic, and manipulative. But, he's also got a control complex. He'd rather make you want to tear your own head off _before _he does the kindness of ripping it off for you. This means that when it comes to control, it's easy for me."

**Damn straight Soul-Boy! **Angelus said. **That's what earned us the title Scourge of Europe! **

"So what's that say about Spike?" Hodgins asked.

Angel gave Spike a slight smirk. "Spike was sensitive emotionally as a person. His demon was violent and impulsive. When you put both of those things together you get someone with extreme issues staying in control."

Spike snarled at him. "I'll get you for that ya great big Poof!"

Angel pointed. "Case and point. I would also like to say once and for all that I am not gay!"

"He's really not," Buffy backed up.

"Whatever!" Spike dismissed. "Pont is I'm going to dust you!"

"You could try," Angel sneered. "However, if photographic memory serves, you've beat me exactly three times in 117 years, and one of those times was because I let you."

"Five times!" Spike corrected.

"It was three and you know it," Angel dismissed calmly. "I also happen to remember teaching you how to fight."

Spike spluttered. "I knew how to fight!"

"You cried when you saw me punch out your drunk friend."

"You're making me glad you missed 17 years of my life," Connor commented. "If you're this happy with embarrassing Spike publicly, I'm glad you weren't around to have anything on me."

"Oh yeah?" Angel asked skeptically. "When you were a baby, you laughed at my vamp face. It was the only way I could make you stop crying half the time. Fred sang you country music at bed time," Angel mused over memories for a few minutes. "You also had a pretty wierd addiction to bananas."

"And I'm proved wrong," Connor muttered. "You can shut up now."

"This is completely insane!" Sweets said. He had just walked in. He heard the whole conversation over the phone. Doctor Brennan had called him and put the phone on speaker when the whole conversation had begun. He had reached the conclusion that everyone was going nuts. "You honestly expect us to believe all of this?"

"Hey Sweets. Pull up a chair," Angel greeted casually. "To be honest I thought we'd all have been committed by now. But I'm actually pretty sure our collective sanity is in good shape. With the possible exception of Spike."

Spike thought about being offended, but decided it wasn't worth the effort to argue with something that was pretty obviously true.

"Everyone here is completely insane," Sweets repeated.

"Including you," Faith told him. "They taught us the signs in prison. The definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions over again and expect a different out come. You've said we were all insane twice, and the outcome hasn't been doing a whole lot in the changing department."

Sweets decided that that was the moment to give up. He flopped into a chair. "I'm insane. I am 100% absolutely insane. Vampire's don't exist, and yet your story is the only explanation that explains all of your wierd behaviour lately. Your recent psychological profile in no way matches the one from before your coma."

"Join Club Crazy," Buffy told him cheerily. "We don't have jackets. There are no fixed meeting times, and our support systems are iffy. Mostly, when one of us is feeling down the others help that person find something to seriously beat the crap out of until they feel better. We do however, have jelly donuts."

"That's actually a legitimate way to vent anger," Sweets said listlessly.

"I'm Dawn," Dawn introduced herself. "This is my older sister Buffy, our friends Faith and Spike-"

"I resent that," Spike commented.

Dawn ignored him. "This is Angel's son Connor. Not Booth's son, he's in Angela's office. Connor is basically my boyfriend, if that's messed up psychologically you people just have to learn to live with it," Buffy and Angel just smiled. "Great. Now, since you haven't technically been introduced, that's Angel, my sister's fiancé."

Sweets let out a long breath. "Just as a general question, how many of you are going to spend time personally belittleing my career path?"

Buffy, Spike, Connor, Dawn, and Faith exchanged glances.

"I may ridicule a little bit," Dawn admitted.

"I second that," Connor agreed, raising his hand.

Spike snorted. "There is no way in bloody hell that I will let this chance to mock an innocent bystander pass."

Sweets looked hopefully at Faith. She held up her hands in defense. "Hey, I promise if it makes your ego feel any better I'll keep it to skeptical expressions and a sarcastic tone of voice."

"I'm not a skeptic," Buffy volunteered. "I was majoring in psyche when I left college. My friend Willow actually has a degree."

"Oh thank god," Sweets muttered.

"So I say again, any questions?" Buffy asked.

"I have one," Hodgins volunteered. "I get how people are turned into vampires, but do you actually share DNA with the vamp that made you?"

Angel and Spike both made sounds remarkably close to choking. "God no!" they both exclaimed.

"If that was true we would have a much bigger case of incest then I ever wanted to contemplate," Angel said with a slight shudder. "Connor would be both my son and my half brother."

"Let's not ever bring that up again," Connor muttered.

"I would have been screwing with my sister for over a century," Spike said with horror. A thought struck him then. "Oi, would Junior by my uncle or would I be his uncle?"

"It really doesn't matter because you have no DNA connection to me," Angel told Spike. "The only thing you would even inherit if I died would be being the head of The Order of Aurelius."

"And a bloody lot of money," Spike muttered.

"What does that mean?" Cam asked.

"Vampires mostly move around in groups of two or larger," Faith explained. "Big A over there was sired by the she devil Darla."

"Darla was sired by 'The Master'," Buffy continued. "Angel was only two generations out from the master and since vamp societies are patriarch's, Angel became the leader as soon as I pulverized the Master's bones into something that closely resembles flour. Since Angel sired Spike, he's the next in line."

"Most ancient societies are patriarchs," Bones agreed. "I still can't believe this story," she said quickly. "But, that is historically accurate."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Oh for God's sake. Does anyone have a mirror?"

Buffy rooted quickly through her bag. In the process, several stakes and a few cans spilled out. She found a small make up mirror and threw it to Angel.

He caught it easily and stood up to cross the floor towards Bones. He pulled her up and stood beside her, angling the mirror so that it would have showed their reflections side by side. As it was, the only face shown was Doctor Brennan's. "See," he asked. "Look at me, look in the mirror. Look at me, now look back in the mirror."

"Now look at Angel's Old Spice Man commercial," Buffy joked.

"Hey Buffy?" Connor asked. "Why do you have pepper spray in your bag?"

"Oh that's just a cover," she explained. "They're actually full of holly water. I thought it was a nice cover."

Angel was still trying to convince Brennan. "I can't believe this," she muttered. "There has to be a logical explanation."

"Bones," Angel said quietly. "I know this is hard, but I'm telling the truth. Just take my pulse, and you'll know." Bones didn't move. Angel grabbed the doctor's hand and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. "Take my pulse bones. Just feel for what isn't there."

Bones took a deep breath and shut her eyes to concentrate. When she couldn't feel anything she frowned and shifted her fingers.

"There is nothing there, is there?" Angel said gently. "I'm technically dead Bones. I don't even need to breathe, I just do it out of habit."

There was a low humming sound and Willow shimmered into form in the middle of the lounge. Willow blinked and looked around. "Oh, I'm sorry!" the wicca apologized. "Is this a bad time?"

"Will!" Dawn squeaked.

Willow was mobbed by a group hug. "What are you doing here?" Buffy asked.

"Well, I had this sort of premonition thing, and I just felt like I had to be here. Besides, I think I can help Angel with the whole, multiple people sharing one brain thing."

"Then you are definitely welcome," Angel said fervently. He looked around at the scientists. "Okay, if nothing else about today convinced you, does the girl appearing from nowhere work as proof?"

The squints exchanged glances. Cam turned to Angel. "We're convinced."

**A/N: So? What do you guys think about this? I love Willow's character, and I have plans for where her magic will be going. Let me know what you guys think!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Diclaimer: I don't own these characters**

**Special note: Hey you guys. I understand that a few of you thought the squints would be less likely to buy the explanation then I portrayed them in the story. I"m sorry about that, but I was basing their reactions on how they would think after seeing concrete proof and hearing a fairly detailed explanation. Remember, Willow and Xander bought it just as fast in Welcome to the Hellmouth. If you have specific ideas for reactions from the squints, right in and tell me and I'll try to edit them in.**

The squints were all experiencing varied mental reactions to the news. For the most part they believed the story, what they were struggling with was believing that they believed the story. Angela was trying to process everything and fit it into her view of the world. Hodgins privately suspected that there was some sort of elaborate conspiracy going on. Cam was dealing with a migraine the size of Texas, but otherwise she was coping pretty well. Sweets was mentally racking his brains to try and recall anything he had ever heard about vampires and complex delusions shared by a large group. It wasn't going so well. Doctor Brennan was the one having the real issue. Her brain was spinning like the tea cups at Disney World, and she wasn't sure when or if the ride would come to a stop.

Sweets came up with what he thought was a good question. "As Angelus, what control do you as Angel have over his actions?" Sweets as a shrink wanted information on how this case related to other cases of Multiple Personality, or Dissociative Identity Disorder. He thought that he could get a unique perspective on it from Angel, because in most cases, the people suffering from the disorder don't even know they have it.

Angel carefully picked the words for his answer. In most situations he had almost complete control over Angelus, but it still popped through at times. As Angelus he had almost no control at all. The best he could do when Angelus was in control was to prevent mass slaughter.

"Not very much," he told Sweets honestly. "When I'm in control, I can still hear Angelus's thoughts like a voice in the back of my head. That control slips when I'm in an extremely violent, or emotionally over charged situations, but I can pull it back together. It's flipped around when Angelus is in control of the body. He can hear my thoughts, and I can make it harder for him to go on a massacre, but he can ignore me the same way I ignore him."

"But you share the same memories and skills that the Angelus persona has accumulated correct?" Sweets persisted.

Angel raised his eyebrows at Sweets's eagerness to discuss his more psychotic persona. "You mean do I have the technical skill to torture you for days on end?" he asked rhetorically. Sweets's face lost some of the eager beaver shine. Angel wasn't finished yet. "Could I make you bleed for days? Could I cause you excruciating pain with nothing more than a needle? Is that what you're asking me Sweets?"

**Hell yes you could! **Angelus said into his head. **I have tried to get you to go out and have some good violent fun for ages! But you never had the balls to get it done!**

The whole room had gone very quiet at this point. Angel almost never talked about anything pertaining to his past, and he didn't like to. When the topic came up his voice took on a particular haunted quality that made people stop and listen.

Angel leaned forward and made sure Sweets was meeting his gaze. "The answer to those questions is yes," he said quietly. "I have the ability to do those things. I _can_ kill people, and I can make sure it hurts. If I wanted to, I could twist someone's head around until they didn't know which way was up. The point of having a soul is that I won't," Angel sat back again. "Now, do you have any other questions about my past? Maybe you'd like to hear about the rush Angelus got from massacring a convent? Or how about the overwhelming guilt I get to deal with after every time Angelus comes out to play?"

Buffy could feel the tension in Angel from the arm he had just put back around her waist. The muscles and tendons were so tight that they were almost trembling. She curled up and tucked her head in against Angel's chest over the spot where his heart beat should have been audible. She made sure that Angel could feel her take a deep breath, like she was reminding him to relax as best he could. After a moment, Buffy felt Angel relax slightly.

"Hey Buffy," Connor said. "Has he always been that ominous and doom filled, or is this a more recent development?"

"No this is one of those long term things," Buffy told him.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah," Buffy said airily "When I first met him, Angel had followed me into this back alley-"

"And you kicked me in the back of the head," Angel interjected. "That hurt by the way."

Buffy smiled guiltily. "Sorry, but you seemed pretty okay with it at the time. I'm pretty sure your exact words were, 'to be honest I thought you'd be taller.' After that you proceeded to tell me that I had to stop the nice evening I had planed because I was and again exact words, 'You're standing on the Mouth of Hell, and it's about to open.' Then you gave me a necklace. That's pretty ominous and doom and gloom to me."

Angel winced a bit. "Well what did you want me to say? Sorry Honey, but your standing on the magnet of all evil and there are hundreds of vampires who personally want to kill you. And hey before I forget, I'm a 240 year old vampire with a soul who's in love with you. So, here's a nice necklace please try not to die? Some how I doubt that would have gone down well."

"Fine, you have a point," Buffy conceded. "I probably would have beat you into a pulp."

"It's what you did to me," Spike pointed out.

"You can't really blame me for that," Buffy excused. "You started out our relationship by repeatedly trying to kill me. Then you professed your love for me in a rock and roll song that even Bono might've found just a bit on the preachy side."

Dawn and Faith both laughed out loud. "When did that happen?" Faith asked.

"Oh, there was this demon that came through Sunnydale, he put this spell on everyone so that we were stuck pulling a _Sound of Music _routine for a few days. Remember that Dawnie?"

Dawn shuddered. "Kind of hard to forget. We each had a solo or two, and there was this great chorus piece at the end. I also have to say, I did not Giles could sing before that."

Willow raised her hand. "I didn't have a solo."

Faith looked at her. "Sorry to tell you this Red, but I've heard you do karaoke, there was a cosmic reason."

Willow opened her mouth to protest, but instead wound up saying, "that is actually true."

"Giles can sing?" Angel asked, sidetracked.

"The librarian's actually pretty good," Spike acknowledged. " I personally thought mine was better."

"Of course you did," Angel sighed.

"You guys got coursed to _sing?_" Hodgins asked sniggering.

Buffy glared at him. "That situation was so far from funny that it circled all the way back around to funny again. And you should remember, I have just as much strength as Angel does in the pummeling department."

Angela had a completely different question that stemmed from earlier in the conversation. "Your first meeting was in an alley? I hope the next time was more romantic."

Buffy looked at Angel. "Wasn't the second time we met in a mausoleum?"

"Yeah," Angel agreed grudgingly. "The third time was okay though. That was at the Bronze."

"You warned me about cutlery guy and gave me your jacket because you thought I looked cold," Buffy remembered.

Angel shrugged. "I didn't want you to get the flu or anything."

Buffy held up her hand to cut him off. "It's one of my better memories Angel. I really don't want to ruin it with your practical thought process."

Angel gave a little smile. "I'll shut up then."

"Thank you."

"So why are you here now?" Cam asked. "If Booth was always around as some perfect cosmic replica of you Angel, why are you guys only just showing up now?"

Faith interrupted with an answer before Angel could put a word in. "The PTB got board and decided we needed some other wicked evil to deal with instead of taking a vacation like we'd planned on."

"There's also the one million coördinated acts of chance organized by the Powers That Be to configure us into the correct cosmic place to carry out their will- suddenly realizing your version was far in the way of simpler," Willow petered off.

"These powers can really just mess with your life, just like that?" Sweets asked with some skepticism.

"They're a real bitch about it to," Buffy griped. "It's like, come on guys, I already died twice and you totally wrecked graduation _and _my 17th birthday. You can't let me get through one pedicure? Talk about selfish."

"Cordy's a higher power now," Angel commented absently. He suddenly realized exactly how that had sounded. "That came out wrong in context."

Hodgins perked up his ears slightly. "Your friend is a higher power?"

"Not friend exactly," Buffy hedged.

"How so?" Sweets checked. His shrink sense was buzzing.

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances. "We hated each other with a burning passion for twelve years until she started dating our best friend," Willow supplied. "Then they broke up and Cordy went to L.A. to be an actress but she wound up helping Angel get redemption. Then she died and became a higher being."

"Is that it?" Sweets checked.

"Well..." Faith said.

"What?" Angela prodded. She loved a good gossip any day.

Connor sighed. "She got possessed by an evil demon who convinced me that I was the father of the demon baby controlling her before she tried to make me kill Angel and enslave the world. Then she went into a coma, died, and became a higher power."

"You guys have busy lives don't you," Bones managed mildly. "As a matter of hypothetical interest, does anyone in your world ever just die and stay dead?"

Willow, Buffy, and Angel, all had darkened expressions when they answered.

"Why don't you ask my first girlfriend Tara, Buffy's mother Joyce, or Angel's friend Doyle," Willow shot at her. "Too many of our friends have died to save the world multiple times. Buffy even died for over four months, I brought her back to life and things weren't right for weeks. It got me addicted to dark magic and I barely came back from that. Sometimes people die and stay dead, sometimes they die and come back wrong. Either way it's not something to mess with or joke about," Everyone was listening with rapt attention at this point. Willow took a deep breath and looked back at Bones. "I know this all seems illogical and scientific, but there really are rules and sciences behind all of it."

Bones took a deep breath and opened her mind to what was happening. "Why don't you explain some of those principles to me at some point? That might help this situation fit in my view of the world."

"No problem," Willow replied with a smile.

Angel returned to the question Cam had asked before. "We're here now because there are more bad things happening. Vampires that have already been killed, some as long as a century ago are rising again and that's not supposed to be possible. What makes it even worse is that vampires gain power the older they get. Now Spike and I are both over a century, hell I'm almost two and a half, but some of the vamps coming back are nearly six centuries old by now."

"And that is a whole world of bad," Buffy put in. "You see, vamps don't just get stronger and faster as they get older, the thrall also gets stronger. Sometimes to the point were they don't even need eye contact."

"What is a thrall exactly?" Sweets asked.

"It's like hypnosis, but stronger," Spike put in. "It works almost immediately, and it can bend people to do pretty much anything that the vamp wants. It's one of the most dangerous weapons in a vampire's arsenal, even for a young one. In a master vampire like Angelus over here, it's almost instantly lethal."

"Anthropologically I suppose that would be used as a way to attract prey would it not?" Bones asked. Now that she could connect in some science she was feeling better. "Similar to how a Venus fly trap pulls in the insects."

Angel shifted a little and began to explain a bit more. "Vampires go through some personality changes during the shift. A certain charisma, or aura if you will. It's supposed to help pull in victims. If you had a strong personality in the first place, like, well me, that gets emphasized as a personality trait. It's very like sped up evolution. The demon makes changes to make sure that its human vessel has the best possible chance at survival."

"That makes sense," Hodgins agreed.

"You guys should all talk to Giles," Buffy suggested. "I think you would all have tons of sciency fun."

Cam checked her watch. "Speaking of sciency fun, Doctor Brennan and I have to go to a board meeting. You have to come to Hodgins they want the benefactors."

"Oh the pains of being wealthy," Hodgins muttered.

Angel shifted Buffy onto his lap more. "That's why I don't keep my money connected to my legal identity," he said casually.

Everyone froze. "You're wealthy!" came five voices.

"Several million dollars collecting interest for two hundred years plus other deposits and not actually having to buy many things means you wind up with a lot of money with not much to spend it on," Angel answered.

Buffy gave him a quick kiss. "Feel free to spoil me all you want. I can promise you that you will feel absolutely no guilt over it."

Angel smiled. "I'll keep that in mind. Now I have to go fill out more of Booth's paper work. I feel like I should be getting payed for all that."

_**No one asked you to take over my life Buddy! **_Booth criticized.

"Well if everyone's leaving," Spike said stretching. "I'm headed back to the apartment to catch a good kip."

Faith stood with him. "I'm coming to. I need to catch up on some shut-eye."

The two left and Connor and Dawn stood. "Hey Dad?" Connor asked. "I was going to take Dawn out and do some sight-seeing. Can I have some money since you're actually loaded?"

Angel nodded and Buffy moved so he could stand up. Angel opened his wallet and handed Connor some money. "Do tourist things. You won't have time closer to the apocalypse," he advised.

Connor nodded and left with Dawn. Angel leaned down and kissed Buffy good bye before leaving for the Hoover building. This left Angela and Buffy sitting in the lounge.

"Well now that they're gone," Angela said with a grin. "Tell me the good, juicy, details about this story. I want to hear about Angel, I think I get the right to know since he's the supernatural embodiment of one of my best friends."

Buffy grinned. "Oh Angela, this is the interesting part,"

**A/N: What did you think? I have now finished the explaining of things to the squints, at least mostly. The next chapter will deal more with separating Booth from Angel. That will definitely be interesting, and funny, possibly violent. **


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: You would have watched this on the shows if I owned these characters.**

After Buffy had finished explaining her more personal past with Angel, Angela needed a moment to properly process everything. When she had, she really only had one thing to say.

"Wow."

Buffy nodded. "Pretty much. My life is a lot like that. Someone should probably write a soap opera or something."

Angela shook her head. "I mean, forget about The Titanic, you guys have the forbidden love of like, ever."

Buffy shrugged. "Well if it was forbidden, we've gotten it un-forbidden. Or maybe the powers decided to finally cut me and Angel a break. I don't know, all I know is that Angel is one part of my life that I've never, ever doubted. He couldn't be permanent before and now he can be. I don't know how this whole thing with your friend Booth came about, and it might be selfish to say, but I'm grateful for it."

A thought that had been weighing on the edge of Angela's mind since she had found out about all of this became more prominent in Angela's thoughts. "Buffy," she asked slowly. "If Angel has become Booth, does that mean that Booth is dead?"

Buffy shook her head. "It's kind of hard to explain, but Booth isn't dead. The body his subconscious is in is Angel's, so I guess Booth's _body _is technically dead, but his conscious, his thoughts, they're still completely alive."

"So basically Booth has been mashed into a box inside Angel," Angela reasoned. Buffy's reassurance had made her feel much better. She wasn't sure what she would have done if Booth had really been gone forever. It would have been even worse for Doctor Brennan.

"Mushed in a box is a good analogy," Buffy agreed. "Only trouble is, Booth's conscience doesn't really like being in the box. Neither does Angelus. Put those two together, and Angel's head is essentially the battle ground for World War III."

"The headaches," Angela realized. "Booth, or Angel I guess, he's been rubbing his temples. He said he just had a headache."

Buffy nodded. "Well, I bet I would too if I had two extra people yelling inside my head," Buffy bit her lower lip. "To be hones, I'm not sure how much longer Angel can go without snapping. I mean, you saw what he did to Hodgins, and that was just the surface. Angel is strong, but if this goes too much longer there's no telling what might winde up happening." Buffy lost her train of thought to worrying about Angel.

Angela swallowed. "When we were talking earlier. Angel talked about loosing his soul. What would happen if he did?" she had been worrying about this for a while. Angel's earlier talk about being able to reap painful death if he chose to, but wouldn't because he had a soul had chilled her to the bone. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what could happen if Angel suddenly lost the fight to hold back those abilities.

Buffy shuddered. Angela's question bringing up memories of the months after her 17th birthday. "I don't even want to think about that," she said honestly.

Angela tactfully changed the subject while making a mental note to pass on what she had learned.

The two of them chatted for a while before Buffy suddenly remembered that Parker had been by himself for over an hour. While Parker was Booth's child and not Angel's, it didn't change the fact that he was adorable. Buffy also didn't think it would be a very good idea to let Parker get hurt on her watch. She was pretty sure they had a criminal charge for that. She told Angela she was ging to check on him and got up and started walking towards where she remembered Brennan's office was.

She found Parker curled up on the couch taking a nap. There was a juice box on the table next to him, and his new LEGO's were spread over the floor. Buffy smiled and kneeled down on the floor next to the couch. Parker opened his eyes and blinked sleepily up at her.

"Hi Buffy. Can we go home now?"

Buffy smiled, and shook her head. "Sorry Parker, but your daddy has a lot of work to do, and he's coming to bring us back home later. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Do you need anything?"

Parker shook his head. "Who are all the other people out there?" he asked innocently.

"Old friends of me and your dad," Buffy tole him. It wasn't even really a lie, she reasoned. Sure they weren't technically Booth's friends, but they were old friends of her and Angel.

Parker gave a big yawn. Buffy smiled at him gently. "Go back to sleep hun. I'll come get you from here when it's time to go home."

Parker nodded and curled up into a little ball with his eyes closed. Buffy pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and tucked it around him before tip toeing silently out the door.

She spent some time poking around the lab. She had to admit it was impressive. Everything looked sleek and state of the art. Buffy idly wondered how much money the government poured in to places like The Jeffersonian. She thought probably a lot. She figured that Willow, Giles, and Wesley would probably all love to work in a place like that. It really was too bad that they had all been given full time jobs by the Powers That Be. And they didn't even get paid for what they did! All together, the Scoobies and Angel Investigations had saved the world countless times, and they didn't even have results show up on Google. Buffy would have thought that preventing multiple apocalypses would have been worth at least a Google hit.

Buffy actually saw Willow talking animatedly with some scientists. She decided to avoid the conversation since it would probably just give her a headache. Science had never really been her best subject. She preferred to just beat things to pulp instead of going into scientific explanations on why they were pulpy.

Eventually she went back to the lounge and sat with Angela again.

Angela smiled at her. "Is Parker okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine. Booth has a great kid." Buffy answered.

"Connor's not that bad," Angela commented.

Buffy laughed. "No he's not. According to Angel I missed his rebellious phase," she thought for a moment. "I wish Connor had gotten the chance to grow up normally and hadn't ever gone loony, but he did. I have to say, that's one part of Angel's life I'm glad I missed."

"I'm glad you missed that too," Angel said from the top of the stairs.

Both girls jumped. Angel had walked so silently that neither had heard him come in.

Buffy let out a slow calming breath. "You're certainly still good at that," she said when she had relaxed. "You always did have good entrance and exit lines."

"I should have been in the theatre," Angel said drily. he came over and sat beside Buffy.

Buffy played a long with the joke. "You definitely wouldn't have had trouble remembering your lines, and hours wouldn't be an issue. I'm not so sure about the lighting thing though."

"Damn," he said emotionlessly. "I had my hopes up for a moment."

Buffy rolled her eyes at his short answers. "We should enter you and Oz into a competition some time. How to have a conversation with the fewest possible number of syllables. You'd win hands down."

Angel cracked a half smile. "Let me know if they ever make that official and we'll see."

"I just had a thought," Angela said. "You guys should try entering the Olympics. It could be epic!"

"Oh..." Buffy said frowning. "Sounds a little full timey to me. I'll stick with killing the minions of hell." She turned back to Angel. "Did you get all of Booth's paper work done?"

"Filled out and filed," he answered. Angel checked the light coming in through the high windows. He had learned how to tell time that way before he had even become a vampire. There hadn't really been clocks in 18th century Ireland. The most they got was a sun dial, and that wasn't the most reliable. Ireland during the winter really didn't have much sun. "We should probably head home soon. Parker needs to sleep in a real bed, and we need to go on patrol and do some more research before we can call it a day."

Buffy got off the couch and stretched out her arms and back. "That's me," she said in a chipper voice. "Slayage and research Buffy! Parker is on the couch in there."

Angel nodded and left for a few minutes before coming back. He was carrying Parker with one arm, and his bag in the other. While he had been gone, Buffy had texted Willow to come and meet her, so they were both ready to leave when he arrived.

Buffy and Willow said goodbye to Angela, and the four of them left together.

"Did you guys have a nice day in squintville while I did paper work?" Angel asked. He was doing his best to talk like Booth would for Parker's sake in case the boy woke up.

"It was interesting," Buffy answered. "I had a nice conversation with Angela. I made sure she understood what was going on. I'm hoping she'll pass on the message."

Angel nodded.

"I loved it!" Willow chirped. "I got a look at all the equipment they use, and I had a great talk with the other doctors!"

"Are we looking at your second career path Wills?" Buffy joked.

Willow grinned and started talking at hyper speed about how amazing everything she had seen was. Buffy and Angel just listened. It was nice to hear someone be happily excited about something. it was a welcome change from the gloomy, serious, discussion that they normally had to engage in.

Parker woke up when they were in the car about half way from the apartment. He blinked and looked around. He saw Angel and asked, "Daddy, who is she?" The inquiry had been about Willow.

She smiled and held her hand out to the little boy next to her. "Hi, i'm Buffy's friend Willow."

He shook her hand. "I'm Parker."

"It's nice to meet you."

"You can call her Auntie Willow if you want," Angel told Parker as he used one eye to watch in the mirror.

Parker beamed, and began to tell Willow everything about his life.

Buffy twisted in her seat to watch the interaction. It was enthralling to see how happily oblivious Parker was about the whole scenario. She was also pleased with Angel saying that Parker could call Willow his aunt. She assumed it was in case they were still around when they figured out how to get Booth back.

When they got back to the apartment, Angel introduced everyone. "Parker, this is Buffy's younger sister Dawn, this is Connor, Faith, and Spike."

Everyone exchanged greetings.

Angel hurriedly put Parker to bed before anyone could say anything strange. When he came out again he found everybody waiting in the living room. Spike and Faith were bickering over the merits of different musical bands that he had never even heard of. Willow was typing up a log Dawn was forcing Connor to participate in the group conversation. That made Angel smile a little because it was often something Buffy did to him.

Buffy heard when he came in and turned to him with a smile. "Is Parker all set?" she asked.

"Out like a light. Kids sleep a lot, he probably won't be awake until the morning," Angel told her. He sat down in a chair near Buffy and waited for everyone to finish their conversations. He took the opportunity to relax and hear what had happened with Dawn and Connor. He gathered that they had had a good time, and had done the kind of things that tourists are actually supposed to do.

When everyone had finished talking he decided that it was time to put the conversation back on course. "For tonight I think we need to patrol first, and then come back here and then come back here for research," he proposed.

"Way ahead of you peaches," Spike said. "Faith and me went out earlier before you, Pet, Red, and other Junior got home."

Dawn looked at him. "Do you ever call people by their actual names? Like, ever?"

Spike blinked at her. "Where would be the fun in that?"

"Did you see anybody we... know?" Angel checked.

Spike grimaced. "You're not going to like it mate. We saw Luke, and I think I felt Druisilla in the area as well."

Everyone was quite for a moment before Faith said the only thing that could really sum up the situation. "Well shit."

"That sums it up," Connor agreed.

"So if we don't need to do slayage tonight, what's are plan of total lack of action?" Buffy asked.

"Well, can I make a suggestion?" Willow said. "To me there are really two things we have to research. We need to figure out how to get Booth back, and we need to stop vamps from re-rising."

Buffy sighed. "Sometimes I wish vampires were a little more like bread. Rise once, and easily slice able."

"Moving on from that cheerful analogy," Willow chirped. "Since I'm research girl, I suggest that we split into groups. Faith, Connor, and me will try to figure out about Booth. The rest of you take the vampires who are defying the laws of breadology."

Everyone agreed with the plan, so they each took likely seeming books from Angel's collection, and the books that Willow had brought with her from Sunnydale. There was absolute silence in the apartment for an hour, two hours, four hours, and no body had found much of anything. A few people had found and marked some possibly helpful passages, but no one had found anything case breaking.

By the time 2:AM rolled around, Faith had face planted into an encyclopedia of reanimating demons, and Buffy was nodding off with her head on Angel's shoulder. Connor and Dawn were both blinking sufficiently more than usual, and Spike and Angel were even taking unnecessary breaths to re charge the oxygen in their blood.

Suddenly Willow slammed her palm against the table. "I got it!"

Everyone jerked to attention immediately and Faith looked around wildly to see what was attacking. Everyone stared at Willow.

"Did you just say you found a spell?" Angel asked tiredly. "Because I want my brain back. This may sound childish, but I'm kind of sick of sharing."

"We don't play well with others in this family do we?" Connor commented.

Everyone ignored the comment and waited for Willow to explain. "We're going to need an Orb of Thessula, some pretty specific ingredients, and a big open space for a pentagram, but I can work this," she told the group.

Everybody cheered and clapped Willow on the back. Angel hung back however, he knew enough about magic to know it was never that simple. "What are the risks?" he asked quietly.

Willow locked eyes with him. "I can do things to make it safer," she hedged.

"The risks Willow," Angel persisted. He wasn't willing to do anything that might put them into an even bigger whole than they had started in. They were on a clock as it was.

Willow took a deep breath. "Angelus," she said finally. "Their is a little, and I do mean a really tiny chance, that Angelus might make a guest appearance."

At this point everyone was thinking pretty much the same thing. _**Oh Shit!**_

Inside Angel's head, Angelus cackled maniacally.

**A/N: What do you think? Give me some feed back here! I'm sorry about the gap since last time, and their's about to be an even bigger one. Damn those required school trips huh? Hang in with me though! I'll be back by next Friday.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: Once again, no**

The next day, Angel went into the lab at the Jeffersonian and started trying to find Bones. They were going to need a very large open space for the spell, and the lab was the most secure place they could come up with. Angel would have preferred it if they could have simply left the scientist out of the whole thing, but they needed the lab to be completely empty. If Angelus really did show up then life would end very quickly for any innocent bystanders in the vicinity.

Angel decided out of politeness that he would just wait in the anthropologists office. He could have probably found her by smell, but that normally freaked people out. Anyways, Bones spent so much time at the lab that her scent was almost everywhere and would be almost impossible to follow to the real person.

He sat down on the couch to wait and found himself sliding into his own thoughts. Old habits really did die hard, and his had been building for nearly two and a half centuries.

Angel found his attention captured by the dust specks floating in a long beam of sunlight. He shifted to his feet and moved his hand through the light, enjoying the novelty of the sensation. It was different from the light that had been filtered through the windows of Wolfram and Hart. There, the light was pale and clear, and generated no actual warmth. This light was worm, rich, and golden. The Gem of Amara on his finger kept the sun from burning him, but the light caused a strange, pleasant, sort of sting on his skin. Angel had discovered that since he had been able to sit in direct sunlight, the more he felt a bit like a cat seeking it out to sleep in.

Just then, he heard the echo of foot steps on the floor of the hallway outside about 20 meters away. He didn't bother to turn around since he could already tell it was Doctor Brennan. Much as he had been able to tell the good doctor was feeling strange about the whole situation, he didn't think he needed to worry about getting dusted.

"Hello Bones," he said without turning around as he heard the door open.

Bones froze for a moment on her threshold. "Booth..." she started and then stopped. She wasn't really sure what to call the man in front of her anymore. He looked so much like her friend, maybe even more than a friend, but for all intents and purposes she was speaking to an entirely different person.

"Angel," she corrected herself. "How did you get in here?" she asked, moving to sit down.

"Public place. I can come and go however I want," Angel explained.

Bones nodded. "Does that go for every public place? Or are there specifications?" her natural scientific inclinations had kicked in, and she had begun to gather more facts. Temperance Brennan was the kind of person who liked to understand everything they possibly could about every situation.

"Mostly," Angel answered awkwardly. "Mostly it depends on the number of people coming and going from the place regularly. It can also depend on whether or not the owner of a private dwelling is still alive. If they are we need permission, if the person is dead, the place is fair game. Once we have permission from the owner we can come and go as we choose."

"Is there anyway to bar a vampire who has already been invited from entering " Bones asked curiously.

Angel flinched involuntarily as he remembered when Buffy had revoked his invitation while he had been Angelus. He in no way blamed her, the drawing her as she slept thing had been nothing short of creepy. "There's a spell," he answered stiffly. "You can also block entrance ways with crosses and holy water."

"What about garlic?" Bones was asking as a joke but Angel still made a face.

"Garlic doesn't do jack to us except smell bad. Garlic repelling vampires is just another stupid stereotype developed by hack Hollywood screen writers," he griped. Angel _hated _when people just assumed that everything in vampire movies was real. Being unable to touch holly objects and being repelled by some disgusting smelling herb were two completely different things. it was the same way for him when people just assumed that he slept in a coffin. _God damn Dracula! _

"So what's going on?" Bones asked. "Is there a body that I need to examine?"

Angel shook his head. "We've found a spell to get Booth back and we need a big open space to do it in. Somewhere where people won't walk in on us by accident."

"You're talking about the lab?"

He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Look I hate to ask, but it's easy to lock down and we'd have the space we needed to do the spell."

Bones considered for a few moments. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of a large group of people doing unknown black magic in her work place, but she _needed _Booth back and she wanted to help make it happen if she could. Eventually she said. "You have to ask Cam. She actually runs the lab."

"Yeah but it's your home," Angel said. He back tracked immediately at the expression on her face. "I mean, according to Booth this is your home. I can go ask Cam, but permission from you is more like being invited into your home. It's more important."

Brennan was silent for a long moment as Angel waited for a reply. Finally she said, "You can use the lab Angel,"

He gave her a smile. Bones realized that it was the first time she'd actually seen _Angel _smile. It was different from Booth's. When Booth smiled it took up his entire face and showed all of his teeth and multiple dimples. When Angel smiled, it was small and soft. It didn't really show dimples, and only slightly showed his front teeth, but it still lit up his entire face. Warm light seemed to back light his eyes and make the brown seem lighter and warmer than she had seen lately.

Bones smiled back and turned to her waiting paper work. She looked up a moment later to find herself alone in her office, sunlight streaming through her windows.

* * *

Very late that night...

"Are you sure you have all the supplies you need?" Buffy checked with Willow for what must have been the hundredth time.

"Yes Buffy," Willow said patiently.

Buffy still worried. "I really don't want anything to go wrong. We don't really need a re-run of the 'Angelus will suck the world into hell' episode of the show."

"Relax B," Faith said from the back seat of Booth's government S.U.V where she was lounging. "If what we did was safe the Slayer would have been a guy. This is no different. Besides, we've got plenty of dangerous objects we can use to take down Hell Boy."

"If Angelus does show up can I have dibs on hitting him first?" Connor asked from the seat next to Dawn.

Buffy frowned at him, but didn't get to answer because Spike interrupted. "Sorry Junior. I called permanent dibs on hitting the great poof nearly a century before you were born. Pet has rights after that."

"Damn right I do," Buffy muttered.

Connor swore with a particularly foul word in a demon language that no one else knew and settled back into his seat.

"I didn't know you had all called slots to be able to hit me," Angel said.

Buffy gave him a crooked grin. "No, we called places on when to kill _Angelus. _Only Spike and Xander called rights on when to kill you."

Angel swallowed. "Thanks for warning me."

That was when they pulled up outside the lab. Willow grabbed her supply bag and everyone else took hold of their chosen selection of deadly weapons. They had all patrolled before they left so the world was relatively safe from re-risen vampires for the evening. As long as there were no unforeseeable disasters, which given their luck, there almost definitely would be. However the issue with unforeseeable disasters was that they were unforeseeable, as in, impossible to know about before they happened.

The small group entered the larger section of the lab, and Willow swiftly began to set up the pentagram on the floor. Cam and Bones had made sure that the whole place was shut down in term of security, so they could do what they needed to do without making really interesting T.V. for the day time security guards who watched the footage in the morning.

"Is this stuff ever going to come off the floor?" Dawn wondered as she finished the last side of the pentagram.

"Um... probably," Willow said guiltily.

"It had better," Angel said nervously. "I think the staff members of the Jeffersonian might have a few questions about a giant red pentagram on the floor tomorrow morning."

Spike nodded. "Some people do care about that type of thing. Silly really, there's so much else they could be concerned about."

"Alright we're set," Willow said. "Angel, step into the middle of the pentagram and sit in front of the Orb of Thessula."

Angel did as he was told and tried to relax his muscles. All soul magic was painful, and he didn't imagine that being tense would help matters in the slightest.

Willow organized everyone where she needed them to be and showed them the section they needed to read. Faith frowned down at the Latin words written on the page. To her it looked like pretty much straight gibberish. "Do we have to actually know what we're saying?" she asked in concern.

Willow shook her head. "In my experience, it doesn't change a thing whether or not you know what the hell you're doing."

"Really not making me feel any better!" Angel called from his position in the middle of the floor.

Buffy gave him a sympathetic gaze and blew him a kiss. Angel felt slightly better, but not by much. The experience was a bit like going for a critical operation and being told half way through it that the surgeons were everyday people following an instruction video.

Willow took a deep breath and began the chant. Everybody else joined in when they had to.

The spell was about three quarters of the way done when Angel began to feel the spell taking effect. It started as little pinpricks under his skin and they slowly began to spread and intensify. He was vaguely aware of a sot of glow filling the room, but it was pretty much obscured by the sparks of gold light that danced sporadically in front of his vision. Angel felt like his veins had been injected with fire and ice simultaneously as the chanting grew louder, and the spell started to come to it's end. Finally a sharp pain ripped through his head and Angel collapsed forward as the Orb of Thessula disappeared.

"Oh fuck my head hurts," Came a voice that Angel recognized as Booth's from all the times he had heard it in his head.

Another ripping pain surged through Angel's head. _Oh no. Oh hell. _Angel thought feverishly.

"Oh it is good to be back!" Came Angelus's gloating voice.

Buffy promptly shot Angelus with a dart full of a powerful vampire sedative.

Angelus examined the dart and clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Now now kitten, there's no need to play rough," before promptly collapsing onto the ground.

Dawn looked around at everything. They had Angel curled into a ball, Booth clutching his head moaning, and Angelus passed out on the floor. Not to mention a huge red pentagram that may or may not ever wash off. "Well that went well," she commented.

**A/N: Hey guys! Please review for me! I'm sorry about the time gap between this chapter and the last one. I was in Puerto Rico with my school, and my entire cabin got sick. There won't be a gap that long again.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: Do I really have to write this at the beginning of every chapter? I think it should be pretty obvious for now that I don't own these characters.**

When the pain in Angel's head had started to recede he rolled to his feet. As soon as he was standing straight a fresh wave of pain rushed through his cranium. "Okay, ow," he groaned. "Can we never ever do that again?"

Buffy rushed forward over the lines of the pentagram and hugged him. Angel caught her easily, but the sharp movement sent a new spike of agony through his head. He let out a hiss of breath through his teeth.

Buffy hurriedly let go of him and tugged him over to a desk chair. "Angel are you okay?" she asked worriedly. The slightly distant, cloudy look in Angel's normally clear brown eyes was concerning. The last time Buffy had seen him look like that was just after the poisoned arrow situation with Faith. The only cure for that had been for Angel to munch on her blood, and while it had given her a permanent supernatural connection to Angel, and hadn't really been painful, it hadn't been incredibly _fun_.

Angel managed to focus on her big green eyes and managed to scrape together some reassuring words. "I'm okay," he said gently. He reached out and traced her cheek and jaw line with a finger. "It's just a supernatural migraine." Buffy nodded and turned her face into his hand. They sat in silence for a moment before Angel asked, "so I'm guessing that worked right? Because if I'm dealing with a migraine for nothing it's seriously going to piss me off."

Buffy couldn't help but crack a small smile at that. "It worked," she reassured. "I think Dawn and Connor are force feeding Booth some Advil, and Willow, Spike, and Faith are making sure Angelus stays nice and unconscious. It should be just you in there."

"Strange," Angel mused. "I'm really not used to having this much space. I still remembered everything Angelus did, but he doesn't get to comment on my thoughts anymore. It's rather soothing."

"So A-Man," Faith called. "Are you still Big Bad Vamp? Or are you just a walking corpse now?"

Angel stood still for a moment and felt the familiar relaxation and tightening of his facial muscles as the vampire visage sprung into place. "Still a vampire," he informed the brunette slayer.

"That makes sense," Willow said. "Angel and Angelus both always had equal access to the inner demon. The Angelus personality just enjoyed it, and thought it was a hoot and a half where as-"

"I got to feel nice and guilty about it?" Angel finished. "Yeah, I remember being around for the 97 years where that was happening thanks. We can skip the summary." Angel knew that Willow was just trying to be helpful, but the headache on top of everything else had put him into a bit of a techy mood. Not to mention that he was now facing Angelus. Of course, Angel had been dealing with Angelus's metal presence for a very long time. However, facing him mentally and facing him physically were two entirely different issues. Angel could probably take Angelus in a fight as well, but the whole situation was still off putting.

Mean while Booth was dealing with a headache worse than Angel's. It wasn't actually worse of course, but Booth hadn't ever developed a pain tolerance on the same level Angel had. He blinked dazedly up at the young brown haired girl he remembered being named Dawn. "Can I get another Advil?" he asked. Another bolt of pain rippled through his skull and he winced. "Or maybe 20?"

"Sorry," Dawn chirped. "According to the bottle you can't have any more than 2 every four hours. If you go over that it does some, unpronounceable, bad thing to your liver.

Booth groaned. "At this point I'll take the liver damage. Just get my a freaking pain-killer."

"I wouldn't go down that road," Connor advised. He held out a glass of water. "Here, drink up."

Normally Booth would have taken issue with a pretty much random stranger giving him a glass of liquid, but at this point he really didn't care that much. He took the glass from Connor and drained it in two quick gulps. Almost immediately he began to feel sleepy, and pleasantly numb. "Wha- what did you-?" he managed to stutter before he slumped back in his chair.

As soon as he was out, Dawn gave Connor a hard punch in the shoulder. "What did you give him?" she demanded.

"Jesus! Relax all right!" Connor exclaimed. "It's just a local sedative. He should be out for about an hour while his brain recharges. Besides," he added. "He was the one that asked for a pain killer."

Angel had moved to stand in front of Angelus. It was almost to wierd for words for too be looking at his own mirrored reflection passed out in the middle of a pentagram. Angelus's eyes were shut and his body was motionless. His mouth was curled into a self-satisfied smirk, like even in sleep he was planning nefarious deeds. Angel could almost feel the eil radiating from him.

Buffy was also studying Angelus's prone form. After a moment she asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "What exactly do we _do _with him now? Kill him? He tried to kill everyone of us. Well, not Dawn, but still most of us."

Willow frowned. "It might not be that simple."

"Well then simplify it Red," Spike ordered in a stilted voice. He really wanted to beat the hell out of Angelus and then dust him so he could be free of the sadistic bastard forever.

"Angel and Angelus were formerly two personalities occupying one body. Now they are two people with two bodies which simplifies things a lot in terms of Angel's mental space," Willow began.

"I sense a 'but' coming," Connor commented.

"However-"

"Same difference," Dawn muttered.

"The two still may share some level of physical connection," Willow finished. She mentally ducked and covered in preparation for a possible onslaught.

"Well," Spike said reaching forward and cracking his knuckles. "There is only one way to test that theory and frankly I'm willing to take this one for the team." He stepped forward into the pentagram before anyone could stop him and drove a hard kick into the underside of Angelus's rib cage. Angelus himself grunted, but Angel seemed fine.

Faith looked at Angel expectantly. "So, are you feeling the burning pain of Spike's steel toed boots against your rib cage?"

Angel considered. He separated the pain he was feeling into categories. There was actually quite a bit of pain to be felt. It just seemed to be focused in his cranium and spinal column more than anywhere else. His ribs felt fine though. "No, my ribs seem to be all in working order."

"Maybe we should check again?" Spike suggested. "You know, just to be on the safe side?" Before anyone had answered him, he had kicked out at Angelus again.

"Can I try that?" Connor asked. "it looks therapeutic."

Spike stepped back and made an 'after you' gesture. "Have at it then Junior."

Connor stepped forwards and lifted Angelus's head up by the hair before letting drop to the floor with a heavy clunk. He repeated the action again, this time driving it hard into the floor. He gave a twisted grin. "I feel better already."

Angel however, didn't seem to share the sentiment. His head felt like someone was drilling into it with a high-powered jack hammer, a sharp jolt of pain had ripped through his forehead. He couldn't stop a quiet groan when his head throbbed again more forcefully.

Buffy's gaze snapped too him. "Angel did you feel something?"

Angel nodded mutely. The increased pain in his head was making him feel nauseous. The room was spinning a bit and he had to put a hand against the wall to stay upright. His hands were shaking.

Buffy walked over to him and pressed her palm against his cheek. "You have to talk to me," she told him quietly. "Nothing major, just describe the symptoms."

Angel nodded. Following simply instructions was something he could do. "Migraine, dizziness, shaking, if I had to breath that would be hard as well. The symptoms you would associate with massive blood loss or influenza are both present."

Buffy led him back over to the chair. "Connor give me the Advil," Buffy instructed. Connor complied and Buffy counted out the right amount of pills and handed them to Angel. He swallowed them dry and let his head fall back against the chair head rest.

"What's it like?" Dawn asked curiously.

"Ever been hung over?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"A few times," she admitted grudgingly. Buffy glared at her but Dawn just widened her eyes innocently. "I had my rebellious phase. Besides, it's not like you never got hammered."

Angel sighed. "Well anyway. This is a bit like that times 20," a new shot of pain went through his head. "Plus what I remember the flu being like, maybe a concussion too," he amended.

"Ouch," Faith commented.

"Who hit me with the sledgehammer?" Booth asked as he came back to consciousness.

"I thought you said he was going to be out for longer," Dawn hissed.

Connor shrugged. "I had to guess on the dosage. I must have gone to light."

Angel felt the pain recede slightly and opened his eyes to look at the other man. "We've never been properly introduced, I'm Angel, this is my fiancé Buffy, her sister Dawn, my son Connor, that's Spike, Faith, and Willow."

Booth nodded. "Nice to actually meet you. I'm Booth." He looked around for a moment. "I thought there were three of us sharing your head," he said to Angel.

Willow pointed back towards where the unconscious Angelus was still being guarded by Spike and Faith. "We thought it would be better for everyone if he stayed sedated," Willow explained. "You know, because of the sadistic mass murder thing."

"Good logic I guess," Booth agreed. "Does anyone know when the mega migraine is scheduled to move out?"

"it'll probably be gone in about half an hour," Buffy reassured him. "By the way, Parker is at your house asleep. You might want to get back there."

Booth rose to leave. "Right, do you all need a place to stay?"

"We'll be fine," Angel said. "I've owned property in D.C. for over 50 years."

Booth nodded and tried to leave but almost tripped over his own feet. Faith darted over and caught him before his head could be re-introduced to the floor. "You might want to call somebody to drive you home," she advised. 'Driving with a migraine is supposed to be a pretty bad thing."

"Right," Booth muttered distractedly. He started patting his pockets. "My cell phone is where?"

"Probably lost in an inter-dimentional wormhole," Willow said casually.

Angel sat up straight to look at her. "Would this inter-dementional wormhole be inside my head by any chance? Because If that's open in my head I would really like it shut."

"Oh don't worry about it," Willow dismissed.

Angel nodded and let his head fall back on the chair again. A thought occurred to him and his head came back up. "And I'm not worrying about the possibility of an inter-dimensional wormhole inside my head because?"

No one ever told Angel why he shouldn't be worrying however, because that was the moment that someone opened the door of the lab. Everyone immediately tried to assume some appearance of normality. Spike and Connor hurriedly kicked Angelus under a lab table, Willow clicked her fingers and a large rug appeared over the bright red pentagram. Buffy helped Angel stand up and moved them both over to where Faith was still busy keeping Booth from stumbling into anything solid enough that it would hurt. Dawn, who wasn't doing anything supernatural at that moment, just sat in a pulled out desk chair and tried to look nonchalant.

"It's just me," a voice called. "Doctor Brennan."

"Bones!" Booth said happily.

Bones came around the corner and caught sight of the multiple Booth look alikes. "Booth!" she cried. Then she ran over to hug him. Unfortunately, Booth and Angel were almost identical, and Booth had worn a black leather jacket with dark jeans and combat boots when the mesh had happened. This was very similar to what Angel was wearing. It was natural for Bones to get them a little mixed up. She gave Angel a hard hug.

"Uh, Bones?" Angel said from about two feet away. "Wrong guy."

Angel gingerly extricated himself from the doctor and turned her in the right direction for Booth. Bones rushed at him and gave him a huge hug. Faith stepped away from him and backed up to the wall. Booth hugged her back and made quiet reassuring noises.

Bones pulled her head back slightly. "Are you okay? Please say that you are actually okay."

Booth gave her the brightest smile he could under the circumstances. "I'm all here Bones. I need a good night of sleep and an amount of Advil that will probably do very bad things to my liver, but I will be okay."

Bones almost went into a long list of just what having too much Advil will do to you, but decided better of it. Instead she kissed him.

Booth was frozen with surprise for a moment but was soon returning the kiss. Everyone else quietly backed away. Spike had moved to the far shadows to avoid stray beams of the early morning sun.

When the two broke apart, Booth gave an even bigger smile and said, "That worked better than Advil."

**A/N: How was that? I thought it was about time we got some Bones Booth coupling. Did you guys all appreciate it? Tell me!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: I'm tired right now. Just look at this bit of any other chapter of the fic if you really need to see a disclaimer.**

"What are we going to do now?" Bones asked. It really was the question of the hour. It had been advised for both her and Booth to get back to their houses, but they had both vehemently refused due to the, "unconscious extreme serial killer in the pentagram thing," to use Booth's exact words. Willow had deemed that someone should probably attempt to figure out whether it would be better to just plain stake Angelus and be done with it. The issue with that was that, despite Spike's extensive testing of the subject, kicking one of Angel's embodied personalities in the stomach and actually killing one were two completely different things.

Buffy walked back from the break room and chucked an ice pack at Booth before going to sit between Angel and Dawn on the couch. "I still say kicking you both out the door is a viable option," she commented.

"You could try," Booth denied confidently.

Faith raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you not get the memory of how much ass we as individuals are capable of kicking while you were living in Angel's head? Because if any of us with the expression of Red and Dawnie could physically throw you through the window if we wanted to."

"I'd like to watch you people spar," Booth said with interest.

Connor and Faith both grinned and began to roll back their sleeves. Surprisingly it was Spike who stopped them. "Not now love," he told Faith. Everyone looked at him like he had gone nuts. "Now normally I'd be completely in for a decent spot of violence, but we do have the slight issue of the blood thirsty Ponce over there."

"Which brings us back to the question I formerly stated," Bones pointed out. "What are we going to do now?"

Angel let his mind slip into super planning mode. It was rather similar to his brooding mode, the only difference was that he planned instead of reflected on the grim deeds of his past. That difference didn't change the fact that his face became completely impossible to read.

Dawn shot up when she saw his expression. "He's either brooding or got something! If he's got something great, if he's brooding snap him out of it! We need him to plan!"

Booth looked at her. "Why do you need him to plan? Can't one of you do it?"

"Sure we could," Connor said with an annoyingly condescending tone. He spoke slowly as though he was explaining something to a two year old. He thought that at the very least it would get on their nerves. "But Angel is the one who has seen 14 wars since 1756 and could have strategize the end for every single one of them. We let him plan."

"I could plan too," Willow said off handedly. "I'm pretty much a genius you know."

"We know Wills," Buffy reassured her. "But Angel has broody face. We let him think when he gets broody face."

Bones looked at Angel's still blank and closed face with a professional sort of interest. "Does he do this often?" she inquired. She was starting to worry that it might be something she would have to look out for with Booth.

"Less so now," Buffy told her. "When I first met him "Connor snap him back out of it now please."

Connor sat forward from his chair and smacked Angel abruptly on the back of the head. Angel jerked back to Earth's atmosphere at once. "What?" he asked.

"Thanks Con," Buffy told him.

"Any time," he said honestly.

Angel frowned. "What was the head smack for?" he asked. He felt that it had been a little unnecessary not to mention painful on top of his pre-existing headache.

"Sorry honey," Buffy apologized. "You were in danger of major brood mode. It was the quickest way to snap you back with a good plan. I have a suggestion but I thought you'd probably have a better one."

"What was your suggestion?" Faith asked curiously. The entire group had learned that when it came to plans, it was better to have plans A-Z worked out completely. Plus maybe a plan AA just in case.

Buffy sat up straighter. "I thought we could get the lab locked down somehow to contain Angelus for some questioning while we figure out whether or not we can kill him and try to work out what's bringing vamps back to life," she gestured to Angel. "Now over to you to cover in detail the parts I am almost definitely missing."

"Your original plan is good," Angel started.

"Skip the compliments and get to the bloody details mate," Spike said impatiently.

Angel glared at him. "We need more supplies. If we can get the lab locked down for some reason then nothing will be able to get in or out. We're going to need a lot more holly water and weapons. Not to mention books, everyone we have," Angel looked around at everybody. "Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but Angelus needs to stay under heavy guard. We need everyone who can do battle _here _and Dawn isn't the best to drive. That means someone else has to go by Booth's apartment and pick up what we need."

Dawn raised her hand. "All in favor of that someone being Miss Scientist and Mr. FBI raise your hand."

Booth sighed. He was a little reluctant to leave, but he understood that the idea was a good one. He did know exactly where the right supplies were. "No need for the vote. Bones and I'll go if and only if you let us stay when we get back."

Buffy and Angel exchanged a glance. "Deal," Angel said. He tossed Booth his apartment key. "Get every occult book in the apartment and bring it here. Call in Angela to. We're going to need someone besides Willow around here who's good on the computer. If Hodgins insists on coming to then let him. Anyone else stays the hell out."

Booth nodded. "Got it. Let's go Bones," he dragged the scientist from the room and out to the SUV. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but can you drive?" he asked plaintively when his head throbbed again.

Spike and Angel heard the car drive away from the building. Spike turned to Angel. "Well Sire, what do we do to kill time until the brain squad gets here with supplies?"

Suddenly the group heard a loud yawn and a terrifyingly cold, maniacal laugh. Buffy's breath caught in her chest, Connor stiffened, Faith squared her shoulders, and Dawn went very pale, Spike narrowed his light blue eyes to a squint, and Angel looked suddenly exhausted. "We," he said. "Try not to let the manipulating killer get under our skins."

"How do we go from here at this moment?" Faith asked militarily.

"Small groups," Spike answered immediately. "Love, Witch, you go up on the higher level and cover us with magic and cross bows. Junior and Bit should stay here and watch things. The three of us go and try to get something out of the arrogant Bastard."

"Good plan Spike," Angel acknowledged grudgingly.

Spike froze. "Alright. Everyone take a second to catalog this moment forever. The great Poof just complimented a plan I had."

Angel groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Sometimes I really wish I had told Drusilla no about changing you and let her have the next poor, dumb, pathetic, drunken, idiotic, poetic, bastard who crossed our paths."

"That was more insults used in one sentence than I think I've ever heard used at one time before," Willow commented, feeling vaguely impressed. "Hey, why did you let Drusilla turn him in the first place?"

Angel shrugged. "She was feeling lonely, and she wanted him. I gave her what she wanted."

"Daddy's little girl," Connor quipped.

Angel shuddered. "Never say that again. Now let's go talk to my violent sociopath personality."

He, Spike, and Buffy all walked towards the edge of the pentagram.

"Well, well, well," Angelus mocked. "If it isn't the Three Musketeers, all such white hats," he sighed. "It's enough to make a demon sick." His gaze locked on Spike. "Good God William what happened to you? You were such a vicious, obedient childe."

Spike scowled. "I wouldn't be getting me annoyed Angelus," he warned. "After all I'm not the one in the sodding pentagram."

"Yeah, about that," Angelus said, getting to his feet. "These accommodations keep getting worse and worse. At least last time I had more space."

"Sorry you're feeling cramped," Angel said stiffly.

Angelus looked at him with a sneering smile on his face. "Hey there Soul Boy. I see you got the girl again, congratulations about that. Got your kid following you around like a sheep to, good going there," he grinned even wider. "I really thought drowning you in a coffin would have made things just a little bit more strained, and boning Cordelia, well that had to hurt."

For a moment Buffy wondered what Angel would say. She was almost shocked by the slow smile that curled Angel's mouth. It was not a happy smile, it was actually pretty terrifying. Angel reached over and wrapped both arms around Buffy's waist and held her against him. He lifted one hand and lightly traced the imprint of his teeth against her neck. "This mark must just kill you," he commented to Angelus. "That the Slayer loves me, and you had to threaten to suck the earth in to hell just to get some attention. It must hurt even more that I actually got to have a _drink_," Angel leaned down and lightly kissed the mark, _his _mark. His face morphed in the process, and one fang cut lightly into her neck. Angel leaned back up and caught the drop of blood with his thumb and then popped the digit into his mouth and sucked it clean.

Buffy looked from Angel to Angelus with a bit of confusion. That only increased by the snarl that rippled from Angelus's throat and he realized Angel had actually struck a nerve.

Spike gave a cackle. "Oh, he got you there Peachy Boy. Meanwhile, you've got nothing Mate."

Buffy leaned back into Angel's chest and watched the goings on with interest. After all, it wasn't everyday you got to watch your fiancé engage in a battle of wits with his demonic alter ego with assistance from a third party.

"So," Angel said. "Do you know anything about what's reanimating vampires? Tell us now and maybe we'll kill you quick before letting everyone else take their turn to cut of little bits of you."

"You can't kill me," Angelus scoffed. "No one here will take the risk of their precious little Angel becoming a dust bunny."

"Maybe we can't _kill _you yet," Buffy acknowledged. "But a little while ago I did a favor for a witch coven. Svea Priestesses, ring a little bell? Really powerful, big into banishing. Think about that for a minute. Let us know when you start feeling chatty."

With that the three turned to walk away. Faith decided to take that as the perfect cue to knock Angelus out again.

Just as they reached the lounge again, the doors swished open and Booth and Bones came in hauling bags of books and holy water and crosses.

"We got the supplies you wanted," Booth said.

"Some of these are fascinating," Bones admired. "I would greatly appreciate having the opportunity to look at them more closely."

Dawn grabbed a book and handed it over to her. "You can look at them as close as you want," she promised. "It's research time."

**A/N: How was it? How was the scene with Angelus? I re-watched all of the episodes he was in before writing this to try and get the personality right. You guys need to tell me if it was good. I can change it if it was an epic fail.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: Joss Wheadon and Hart Hanson are the jerks who had these ideas before I was allowed to watch them. In the case of Buffy, it's been around longer then I have.**

Bones was watching her new acquaintances work and train. All of them seemed to be extremely adept at multi tasking, not to mention having an exceptional collective ambidexterity. Dawn and Willow were sitting together at the main table. Dawn was sight translating out load from a book in a language that Bones recognized as Ancient Greek. Willow listened and took notes. Both of them were eating Chinese food while they researched.

Spike and Connor had grown tired of books and were engaged in a mock fight in a clear part of the lab. Faith was playing a heavy metal song from her iPod and was dancing around while giving play by-play commentary on the fight. How she could see anything, Bones had no idea. Both fighters were moving so quickly and easily that the movements were nothing more than blurs. She had no clue who was winning.

Angel had reluctantly consented to helping Booth practice fighting like he did. Booth had a confusing array of memories of fights and movements Angel had engaged in, but every move Angel knew was executed so quickly that even memories had a hard time capturing it correctly. Angel was showing Booth the moves in broken down pieces so that his muscles could learn the moves in a speed that was possible for humans.

Buffy was walking back and forth between all three groups having conversations with different members. They all answered right back, apparently able to work and complete their tasks.

Angela and Hodgins were both at a computer researching a list of likely phrases.

Bones herself had been given a large book on demon anatomy to look through. It was slow going though, the book was ancient and water damaged. It had been handwritten, and the ink was wearing away, the hand writing was also cramped. Bones found herself wondering how the entire group wasn't suffering from extreme eye damage if they used books like this for all of their research.

"Connor keep your elbows tucked or Spike will nail you in the rib cage!" Faith called. Bones turned in time to see Connor fly back into a railing. She thought the railing took more damage then Connor did. Faith winced. "Not that far tucked! You won't be able to manuever!"

"Thanks Faith," Connor grunted as he spun on his back and kicked Spike hard in the shins. The blonde vampire buckled and Connor used the opportunity to jack-knife to his feet. Spike followed quickly, and Faith let out an impatient sigh.

She looked over at Buffy, "Care to paste the boys?" she asked the small blonde.

Buffy stretched her arms out in front of her and grinned. "I'll take Connor you take Spike?" she offered.

Faith grinned back devious and nodded. The two girls launched into the fray and proceeded to separate Spike and Connor and take them down separately. Before the two of them could even realize that they had been double teamed and should start working together, it was already way to late. Buffy sucker punched Connor and stomped on his foot and then proceeded to kick him in the shins. Faith however, took the quick and dirty version by hitting him where no man should ever be hit. Both boys crumpled over in pain and Buffy and Faith stood side by side over them.

"You see this," Buffy said with a gesture. "This is why the Slayers are always girls."

Faith nodded. "Plus it's so much better to be a hot chick with supper powers. We get to wear leather and high heels while we kick ass. It's a good look for a supper hero. Capes and tights are so clichéd."

"According to the watcher diaries the slayer is always a girl because the males of the original society believed that a female would be easier to control. Besides, they worked out that the demon they had captured to put into the girl to make her a slayer was female, they thought that matching the gender would help the demon to take," Willow told them from her place at the table.

"Really?" Buffy said with interest. "I thought it was a girl because all the guys of the time were sissys."

Faith shrugged. "What's it matter? We snapped that mold of being easy to control pretty completely."

"I think firing Wesley was the last straw," Buffy mused. "I never really liked that story. The straw that broke the camel's back. What kind of a camel can't even carry straw?"

Bones saw this as an opportunity to impart some of her considerable knowledge. "According to the legend, the straw was merely the last weight added to an already considerable load."

She might have gone on for a little while longer, but she was interrupted by Dawn almost choking on Lo Mein. Willow moved to help, but Angel got there first using his supernatural speed. He thumped Dawn on the back until she could breathe again.

"I found something," Dawn choked out. "On what's bringing vamps back to life. Or back to unlife, or whatever it is you guys call just hanging out while not being mentally dead."

"Unlife works fine," Angel told her. "I can't think of anything better."

Everyone else joined them quickly and Dawn pointed to a section of the strange, Ancient Greek letters. "This mentions the Greek god of death Hades. According to the myths, he can control the passage of souls between life and death. If he's having issues, maybe that's how vamps are coming back from the dust."

Buffy frowned. "Dawnies are you sure? We've never had run ins with Greek gods before. I know all the myths are real but are you certain this one isn't stretching it?" she checked. Buffy had dealt with a lot of monsters from urban legends, and Glory had been a god. She wasn't sure how she felt about deliberately trying to find another ancient diete.

"I hate to say it Buffy," Willow said gently. "But Dawn is right. There's no other demon or supernatural force that could do this except for the First, and last time I checked, the First was wasn't so much with the still being around."

"So what do you do now?" Hodgins asked skeptically. "Walk in to the underworld and politely ask the Greek Lord of the dead to do you a favor?"

Angel looked at him. "Why not? It's worked before."

Angela turned to look at Buffy. "You really weren't kidding about him being good at the whole, whole cryptic thing."

Buffy's face quirked into a half a smile. "You should have seen him eight years ago. Brooding, cryptic, mysterious, gorgeous, annoying as all hell..."

"And yet," Angel came in. "You fell in love with me anyway. Mysterious and cryptic has never steered me wrong before. It's always better to give out as little personal information to people as possible. Best case scenarios: they either leave you alone, or they're curious for answers only you can give them. Either way you win."

"What about the worst case scenario?" Booth asked.

Faith gave him a glare. "We don't _talk _about the worst case scenario."

"That isn't logical," Bones commented. "A logical working group who works in the circumstances that you do would constantly plan for the worst case scenario to be better able to prevent it from happening."

Connor rolled his eyes. "The worst case scenario is all of us dying a horribly painful death during an apocalypse. Death doesn't really require a whole lot on the planning front unless you have anything to leave behind for people, and we've got nothing."

Angela examined a beautifully illuminated manuscript written in gorgeous calligraphy. "Well I'm no expert, but these books aren't worth nothing."

"Who would I leave them to?" Angela asked her. "If everyone here was dead then that eliminates children, spouses, and almost all of my close friends. My biological family all died off, even the ones I didn't kill personally. We didn't really have much disease control in 18th century Ireland. Also, we all know the exact same people, if everyone of us was dead then we kind of eliminate our options for inheritors."

Spike looked down at his watch. "Right, well, I hate to interrupt the information party, but Big Evil should be waking up in a few moments. Personally, I'd rather he be packed off to a hell dimension of our choosing before we go and talk to the Lord of the Dead."

"I'm with Spike on this one," Faith agreed, raising her hand.

"I'll go get my bag," Willow said as she got up from the table. "You guys can look for the right spell to get into the underworld. I already have the one to banish Angelus."

Buffy made a face like she had bitten into a lemon. "For once I have a way out of doing research that none of you will want to do instead." They all looked at her waiting to find out what that way was. "Someone has to babysit the homicidal maniac," she said in a sing-song voice.

Angel caught her hand as she started to walk away. "You shouldn't go into a room with Angelus alone. He only needs to say one sentence to get into your head."

"I know," Buffy said gently. "i was there when it happened the first time," she reached up and pressed her lips gently against his. "I'll only be there for five minutes. Besides, I want to give him one last shot to spill anything he might know before we send him to hell forever. Having you there is only going to get his back up. If there are a few chinks in Angelus's armor they're hubris, and dangerous over confidence. He knows I'm dangerous, but he doesn't believe that I could ever defeat him."

Angel closed his eyes. "You're right. I know you're right. Hell, I saw that in his head. And you do have a better shot of getting something out of him if you're alone. Just promise me one thing," Buffy looked at him and waited for the condition. "If it doesn't feel right, get the hell out."

"Done," Buffy promised. "I am all with the bugging." She walked away to where she could now here Angelus humming a twisted version of a popular child's prayer.

_"Now I lay me down to sleep_

_I pray myself a soul to keep_

_Angel watch me through the night_

_I'll never see the morning light"_

"You just took morbid and creepy and raised them both like eight notches," Buffy told him.

"Buff," Angelus acknowledged. "Would it kill you white hats to bring a guy a chair?"

"You won't be here long enough to need it," Buffy told him evenly. "Willow is prepping to send you to a particularly nasty hell demention as we speak."

Angelus quirked one eyebrow quizzically. "Really? You actually have the guts to send this," he gestured at himself. "To hell again? I gotta tell you Buff I thought once would have been enough. Or are you just more in touch with that gorgeous twisted side of yours then you were then? Because if I remember right, you cried."

"I never sent you to hell," Buffy said in a stilted voice. "I sent Angel. I cried for him, not for you."

Angelus made a disaproving clucking with his tounge as though he was explaining something to a very small child. "Oh Buffy, when are you going to learn that if you put a fish into a closet, sooner or later all of the clothes smell the same. The fire your precious Soul Boy has for fighting the good fight sure as hell isn't from Liam. That lazy bastard would have been happy to watch the world go to hell. And him taking a sip from your neck earlier wasn't just something to stick in my craw. That's demon instinct Baby, and it's all from me."

"Your driveling," Buffy told him.

"Is it drivel when I say that 10 seconds from now, your precious little key to hell of a sister is going to tell you that you saints can't send me away?" Angelus asked rhetorically.

"And why on Earth do you imagine that will happen?"

Angelus grinned evilly. "Because I'm the only person on earth who knows how to open the gate to hell."

**A/N: How was that? I hope Angelus was right again. I'm also sorry about the gap between chapters. Homework and gymnastics take up a lot of time and the chapter deleted when I wrote it yesterday.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: I own them all! Mwahahahahah Mwahahaha. I control all of their universes and free wills. What I write is the word of god! (maniacle laughter). Actually no. I own none of this. It would be awesome if I did, but the universe made Joss Wheadon the mega genius and not me. **

**The universe sucks.**

Buffy just stared at Angelus for several long moments, just trying to judge whether he could possibly be telling the truth. However, the problem with sadistic pathological psychopaths is that they lie almost constantly. That issue makes it really hard to tell when they're lying. Buffy let her mind work through the problem, taking into account everything she had ever learned about Angelus. The big problem there was that Angelus went between lying and telling the truth when it suited him with no indicators between when he was lying or wasn't.

Angelus lay back and stretched out leisurely while carefully avoiding the pentagram edges. He tucked his hands behind his head and made a show of appearing board while studying the sky through the glass ceiling. "Just wait Baby. I guarantee you the little wicca will be here in 20 seconds." Seconds ticked by, "10, 9," Angelus counted down. "3, 2-"

"Uh... Buffy?" Willow said nervously from the edge of the lab floor.

"Bingo," Angelus said in an I-told-you-so voice. He lifted his head to see Buffy still frowning at him. "Go," he told her mockingly. "Let your precious little friend confirm what I've already told you. I can't leave, besides," his lip curled up into a smirk. "The idea of watching all of you do-gooder's begging on your knees for me to help you is just to fucking tempting to miss out on."

Buffy spun on her heel and hurried over to Willow and dragged her a few feet away from Angelus. "Please say you came over here to tell me that the murdering S.O.B is lying to screw us up," she begged.

Willow looked guilty. "But lying is so unethical."

"God damn it," Buffy swore and resisted the urge to punch the wall. It would be hard to explain a whole in the wall of a government funded lab. She took a deep breath. "So what do we do? We have to shut this down and there's no way to do it without the violent sociopath. We can't let out the violent sociopath, because hello duh! Violent sociopath!"

"Well there might be a bit of a bright side," Willow told her. "We could always leave Angelus in the Greek afterlife. I remember them having some version of hell."

Buffy managed a smile. "That sounds really good to me. Now let's go deliver the news to everyone else. When I tell Angel, he'll either go into over protection mode, brood mode, or some combination there of."

If possible, Willow looked even guiltier. "Yeah, about that, you know how I'm a complete blabber mouth when it comes to bad news?"

The blonde slayer groaned. "You told him already?"

"Only in the sense of yes."

Buffy sighed and turned to walk back to her other friends. She found everyone else sitting in front of a table heaped with books except Angel. He was pacing with a broody expression. Buffy designated his mode as brooding-protective, so really pretty typically Angel. She walked over to him and reached up to his shoulders to stop his pacing. "I'm okay," she told him. " She stepped back and gestured at herself. "See? Completely fine."

Angel took a deep un-needed breath. "I know you're alright. I thought you probably would be but still-"

"The bloke hasn't stopped pacing since you left Pet," Spike said, interrupting Angel in the middle of what he had sensed would likely be a long-winded declaration of love and protectiveness that would likely make him feel nauseous.

The scientist in Bones took over for just a moment. "It has been anthropologically proven that males of every species feel the biological imperative to protect the females of the group, specifically their mates. That, and the fact that Angel was originally born in the age of chivalry where females were considered the weaker gender could account for the impulse to protect and defend."

"That sounds like Peaches alright," Spike agreed with a snicker.

Bones looked at him. "Well you shouldn't be laughing. I'd imagine the same impulse applies to you in certain situations. You may not worry as obsessively as Angel does, but I imagine that the protective instinct is, almost exactly the same. And, if I ever made guesses without scientific proof I would bet that Sweets would agree that the 'psychological' profile is a match."

Spike's laughter turned into a sound that seemed remarkably like choking.

Faith gave him a lopsided grin. "Aw, Spikey. Do you feel protective of me? You really should have said."

"Alright, so Ginny Weasely over there gave us the break down," Booth said. "So do we engage the help of the violent psycho or do we look for another way around this thing."

Angel leaned his head tiredly back against the wall. "If there was another way around it in one of these books we would have found it already. I don't share all of my memories with Angelus, and I don't know if I would be able to get through to his subconscious through meditation even if we did have the time to try it out. That means that militarily speaking we only have one option with limited resources, and no time to come up with another one."

"So I guess we're going with the psychopath then," Booth concluded.

Dawn yawned and stretched her back and neck and rubbed her eyes. "I guess someone should go tell him then. I want o get this over with, and I doubt we can keep the lab in lock down for much longer without some bio hazard people storming the place all guns blazing."

"Are you just going to let everyone come right from the start?" Connor asked. "Or are you going to argue with Dawn and me over it until the last possible moment when you know we're going to come anyway no matter what you do?"

Angel leveled his gaze at his son. "Is there a chance in hell I can make you stay behind?" he asked listlessly.

"Not a one," Connor confirmed. "Besides, I was raised in a hell dimension. If anyone _has _to go it's me."

"And me," Dawn piped up. "I'm way to stubborn for you to ditch me. Besides, opening a portal to and from hell means you're going to need a charitable blood donation from yours keyly."

Buffy turned and buried her head in Angel's shoulder. "I saw that one coming," she muttered into the cool fabric of his shirt. She lifted her head and turned back around. "Fine," she conceded. "But if either of you start playing 'are we there yet' I swear to God I will kick your asses straight back here. Got it? That goes or you too Spike!"

All three muttered their agreement and Buffy visibly relaxed.

"What about us?" Hodgins asked, gesturing to indicate himself and the other government employees sitting at the table. "We want to come to."

Angel looked at him side ways. "Maybe you didn't get this the first time. We are going through a portal to a Greek hell dimension. It's not a luxury vacation."

Booth stood up and gave Angel a stubborn look. "I'm still coming. If nothing else, I want to see that all the work I've been doing to stay out of the fiery pits of hell has been worth it."

"It has been," Angel told him quietly. "Believe me it has been," he closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. "Look, Connor and i both literally went to hell. Spike might as well have while he was getting his soul back. Buffy got ripped out of heaven and put through hell on earth after being dead. Not to mention that her and Faith fight off hell everyday. You can seriously believe us when we say, it's not a place you would want o visit."

"I'm still coming," Booth persisted. "I can be just as stubborn as Dawn I guarantee it, and if ou let me come then you won't be able to stop Bones."

"Aw come on B," Faith chided. "They can come. Red can set them up with some protective charms. Besides, as soon as bad stuff shows up they can hit the road."

Willow frowned in concern. "I'm not sure how many people can go through the portal. I don't need to be there to make the portal work so I can stay here, but I don't think I can get all of you through. At least two other people will have to stay here. More would be better. Maybe Angela, Doctor Brennan, and Doctor Hodgins can help me with some other research for some issues we have back at the hellmouth."

"That sounds like a good plan," Booth conceded, secretly glad that he had a way to keep his friends behind. He saw Bones's pouting expression and gave his best charm smile. "I'll take pictures for you."

Spike rolled his eyes and stood up. He walked towards where Angelus was sitting in the pentagram whistling cheerfully. "Right, can we get moving now? I hate it when that bloody tosser starts whistling like that." Everyone was pretty much in agreement with that, so everyone got up to talk to Angelus.

The demon in question assessed the group for a moment before giving a large, maniacle grin. "So I see you've all come for my help. I honestly thought you'd try to hold out just a _little _bit longer."

Booth rolled his eyes. "Shut up you phsyco. Not everyone enjoys hearing you talk."

Angelus ignored him and looked at the rest of the group. "Now, does anyone else find this guy just a little creepy? Or, is it just me?"

"Skip the small talk Angelus," Faith told him. "We've got a deal for you, real simple, you take us to hell, we let you go."

Angelus made a show of taking his time to consider the situation. "And why," he said slowly. 'Would I want to help you? I seem to remember that the last time we went down this road, I got out all by my little self without helping you white hats one bit."

"Actually," Angel corrected. "I seem to remember you telling Wesley what he wanted to know and killing the beast, weather or not you did it by accident."

"Well your whole 'perfect day' fantasy was just so retarded I thought that there was no way in hell killing the beast would actually bring back the sun."

Buffy sighed exasperatedly. "As touching as this little trip down memory lane is, we have things to do so are you going to help us or not?" she asked Angelus.

"Say please," he mocked.

"Help us or I'll decided it's not worth it and kill you myself," Connor threatened.

Angelus shook his head. "Then you would be right back at killing vampires that just keep on coming back. Now don't get me wrong. That's no problem for me, but you pathetic white hats might take more of an issue," he turned to look at Angel. "You really need to teach the kid some manners."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Just tell Willow how to get us to hell already."

Angelus stood up and stretched lazily. "Well I guess since you asked so nicely, toss me a pen and I'll write it down for you."

**A/N: How was it? My last chapter didn't get many reviews ;(. So this time I will wait for at least 5 reviews before I give you guys another chapter. Tell me what your all thinking!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: Did you ever see this plotline on one of the T.V. shows? If not, then no I don't own these guys. If you did, then how the hell did I miss it!?**

Our heros took a moment after going through the portal to get their bearings. On closer inspection, the demention of the Greek underworld was rather cold and misty. There was also an excess of the color gray. A sickly sweet smell permeated the air, and it was almost impossible to tell where light was coming from.

Dawn examined a large craggy rock that seemed to be sticking straight up out of the ground. "This is hell?" she said with some skepticism. "I have to tell you I expected more flames and brimstone."

Angel shrugged. "Different hell, different scenery. Mine was more about the blinding torment, and less about the visual surroundings."

"Kortoth was more about running for your life," Connor remembered. "Although there was some fire. I'm not sure about the brimstone though. I guess there could have been."

Booth looked at the two like he wasn't sure what to think. "Moving on a bit from the morbid. Can we go find the Ancient Greek lord of the dead? This place is giving me the creeps."

"Hell dementions have a wierd way of doing that," Buffy commented. She turned to Angelus. "Deranged psycho, lead the way to the king of hell."

Angelus let out a low snarl. "He stole that title from me. You'd think someone from close to the dawn of time would be a little more original." He began to stalk off but by the time he was about twenty feet away he fell flat on the ground and clawed his way back up to a standing position. Willow had performed a spell before they left to bind Angelus to the group so he couldn't disappear. "Stupid fucking gypsies," they could hear him muttering. he continued with a long stream of curse words in Gaelic which only Angel could understand. He spun back around to face them. "What are you retards waiting for?" he called. "I have no problem with hanging out here but you may want to leave some time."

"That tosser is always such a pleasure to be around," Spike muttered, as the group started to trudge warily through the dense banks of fog.

Angel and Buffy fell in a few feet behind Angelus. "You know," Angel said. "I didn't even remember that I had remembered half of those swear words."

"Do I want to know what they meant?" Buffy asked doubtfully.

Angel glanced back at Dawn and Connor who were both listening with rapt attention. "No," he decided fervently. "You really don't. It was pretty inventive though, and I'll give points for originality."

"Thank you," Angelus said proudly. His ego, which was always large, had expanded since he had regained a separate body from Angel. he thought that it was probably because his head now had enough space to support it.

"I didn't want that to be a compliment," Angel muttered.

Spike rolled his eyes. "You stupid little tosser," he called from the back of the group. "You shared a head with him for a century, and you didn't think Angelus would take that as a compliment? How do we win battles if the one making plans is such a moron?"

"I asked that a really long time ago, but nobody answered me," Angelus said, with the air of someone who had just been elected the president of the Unites States.

Everyone simply decided not to answer that. Angelus led them through the dark, creepy, landscape. It wouldn't have been so bad if anyone had been able to see their feet, but the rolling smoke and fog made that impossible. Only Angelus seemed to have any idea where they were going. Again, no one asked _how _exactly he did know. Some stories are better left untold.

Both SPike and Angel seemed to be bothered by something. They both kept on sniffing the air, the way a blood hound would sniff for a fox. Faith noticed and frowned, "Spike, Big-A, what's wrong?"

The two exchanged uncomfortable glances. Eventually Angel asked. "Is anyone bleeding?"

Dawn let out a tiny, guilty, cough. All heads snapped towards her. Dawn pulled her sleeve back from her palm and showed it to Connor, who was closest. "I had to," she defended. "You guys needed the blood to get in. I didn't really think anyone had brought band aids and it's really shallow, so I thought I'd just ignore it."

"You don't just walk around with open cuts in a hell demention," Connor said, in a voice of controlled calm. He pulled a roll of gauze and a knife from one pocket and proceeded to bandage the wound.

"Sorry," Dawn said quietly as they continued.

"Everyone needs to be cautious here Bit," Spike told her. "Blood is like a big old neon sign for a tasty snack to most demons."

Angelus sighed wistfully. "I could really go for some nice AB positive around now. I don't suppose you know _your _blood type do you?" he asked Booth hopefully.

"I am not up for tasting. Sorry," Booth said fervently. "Can we go find Hades? Maybe he'll let you have some of his blood."

Angelus made a face. "Ichor. Disgusting," he took a seemingly random left turn. "I really don't see why you're all in such a hurry to find Hades anyway. He's a horrible conversationalist. But anyway, we're here."

The group stopped and looked up to come face to face with a tall, black, iron gate. Behind it was a large black marble building. THere were big turrets and decorative windows. At least, it was assumed that the windows were decorative. There wasn't really much of a view besides the fog. There were also turrets like the they had on the White House.

"So..." Buffy started. "Do we knock or something?" The gates smashed open and everyone jumped backwards. "Alright," Buffy said. "I guess that's a no."

Everyone walked through the gates and towards the huge building. As they got closer, it was possible to see carvings in the walls. They looked like the horror faced theatre masks.

"Charming," Dawn commented. "This dude is the Lord of the Dead. He couldn't have gotten dome decorations with just a bit of class?"

"I liked the decoration," Angelus criticized as he picked his way across the threshold and into the entrance hall. "The black marble is a classic! And have you even seen some of this art work and gems?" he plucked a large red ruby from a pile in a corner. "This alone is worth more than the collective wealth of a small African nation."

"That bit is true actually," Angel commented. "The decor is a fairly typical example of gothic style, and that ruby is probably worth several not-so-small fortunes."

The inside of the palace looked like the way you would expect it to look, if you were expecting it to look like a very creepy mix of a museum, haunted house, bachelor pad. Everything was black marble, gothic patterns, stainless steel. Famous works of art were placed in wall recesses, and other piles of gems like the ruby Angelus had singled out.

Faith examined a large opal pendant in a platinum setting. "Do you think it would be bad form to keep this?" Everyone glared at her. "What?" Faith said innocently. "I doubt he'd miss it."

"What if we held off on looting the place until after Hades has helped us?" Connor suggested.

Angelus brightened up. "Now that is a method of thinking I can respect! Get people to agree to help you, and _then _rob them blind. If you do it the other way then everything is screwed up," he gave a cackle that would have made a mad scientist jealous. "Besides, if the other dude doesn't help you, you can kill him first before you steel, then there _isn't _anyone to miss anything."

Dawn regarded him analytically. "I really wish I could put you in a room with Machiavelli, and just watch. I have a feeling you would either be BFF's or begin plans to kill each other."

"Brilliant thought," Spike said, coming to a sudden stop. "Great Maniac, Ivan The Terrible, Hitler, Stallen, Capone, Machiavelli, and a humoungeus game of Risk. It would go for days."

"That was the most terrifying thing I have heard all day long," Booth commented.

None of the people in that part of the conversation noticed that the hallway had opened into a huge throne room.

"The Association for Dead and Evil Gaming runs a game every second Friday of the month," said a bored voice from the throne.

Everyone paused to take stock of the lord of the dead. His hair was jet black and curly. He wore an Italian, expensive looking business suite with polished shoes, and an expensive watch. His skin was the same deathly pale as Spike and Angels'. He looked for the most part like a bored business man. His eyes were the only thing that ruined the image, they were solid black with no irises, the precise color of volcanic rock.

"Can I get in on that?" Angelus said intently.

"Hello Angelus," Hades acknowledged. He swept his eyes over the group, and froze when he saw Angel and Booth. "Or three Angelus's. What is this, and what do you want?"

Angel sighed and took a step forward. "I don't know how aware you are of our situation. But it is quite a long story. I am Angelus's souled version, and Booth is," Angel searched for a way to sum it up. "Someone who looks like us."

Hades waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "I know of your and Angelus's situation. I have domain over all things dead. Now on to the crux of the matter; What do you all want?"

"I still want in on the Risk game," Angelus muttered.

Hades cocked an eyebrow. "I can easily arrange that, though it seems an odd favor to ask a god for."

Buffy cleared her throat. "Um, excuse me? Lord of the dead? Can you just postpone your catch up session with the deranged serial killer for a moment? We have a bit of a crisis going, and that crisis isn't part of a board game."

"Buffy Summers," Hades said with a smile. "You and miss Lehane have returned many an escaped soul to me over the years, and for that I owe you a moment of time. You and your associates may now state your crisis and what you propose I do about it."

That is exactly what they did. Over the next forty-five minutes, our six heroes gave Hades the shortest version possible of what had happened. Angelus just examined the throne room, and the various artifacts displayed in it. Hades listened with apparent rapt attention. However, his face was expressionless, which made it hard to tell.

When they had finished, everyone looked at Hades expectantly. "I delegate full responsibility to whatever creäture has persuaded my Thanatos into going on strike," he said.

"Than who?" Faith asked.

"My lutenent!" Hades fumed. "Not a problem with him for ix millenia, then he goes off and meets some girl, and suddenly he wants vacation days and a raise! I'm thinking of firing him entirely!"

Spike was puzzled. "Gods can be fired? What is the world coming to?"

"So if you had your helper back, all of this would go back to normal?" Dawn checked.

Hades threw up his hands. "At this point anyone would do! They just need an immortal with maniacle intelligence and a fetish for taking lives! If I had someone like that I would be able to get thing running correctly again!"

Connor was suddenly seized by what everyone agreed to be the brilliant idea of the week. He grabbed a wandering Angelus by the back of the shirt, and used his supernatural strength to shove the indignant vampire towards the huge black throne. "Take him!" Connor said vehemently. "We don't want him! He's maniacle, and killing is his favorite activity!"

"Hmm..." Hades mused. "That could work. Let's give it a test run." Before Angelus could say one word even to swear or insult anyone, Hades pointed at him, and he was swathed in a cloud of black energy. There was a flash of bright light that had everyone temporarily blinded, and when the spots from their vision were cleared, Angelus was gone.

Hades beamed. "That was excellent!I have a new lutenent now!" He gave everyone warm looks. "I feel I should reward you all with something else besides keeping demons dead." He clicked his fingers again, and their ears were assulted with a loud pop.

"Cool," Conner said, in regard to the set of car keys now in his hand.

"Wow," was pretty much the only word that Buffy could form at the sudden addition of very heavy and expensive jewelry to her arms and neck. "I think I have enough jewelry now."

"Amen B!" Faith agreed. The opal she had admired earlier was now clasped around her neck

Dawn examined an egg sized sapphire in her palm. "I think this weighs more than my history textbook."

"I thought it would match your eyes dear," Hades said.

Everyone was slightly thrown off by his change in attitude. Hades had gone from bored businessman, to doting uncle in a matter of minutes. He turned to Spike. "Use what I gave you at the right moment," he advised. "Aphrodite would never forgive me if I enabled you to screw up." Then he turned to Booth. "I don't much care for most humans," he informed the FBI agent. "But I understand you have a son, and I personally feel he would benefit from access to a parent that is not romantically involved with the lutenent of death."

Booth choked. "Come again?" he spluttered.

"Indeed. Shocking isn't it?" Hades agreed. "Either way, look forward to being a single parent," he turned from a still processing Booth to Angel and held out a silver key, which he dropped into Angel's palm. "I believe that has been on your wish list. I believe you will find everything furnished to your liking."

"Is there anything we can do to repay you?" Angel asked cautiously. He had lived long enough to know that no gift came without a price.

Hades gave a crooked grin. "I ask only that you all come to visit next spring with some made up emergency. That's when my step mother comes to visit, and I will need an excuse to leave. Other than that, please send me some account of your histories. I enjoy reading about the human world, I so rarely get contact with it."

Angel nodded. He understood what it was like to feel apart from the world. "We will. Thank you again for everything."

Hades nodded and with an almost lazy flick of his hand, the world seemed to bend and distort. Reality almost seemed to snap and pop, and then everyone had collapsed on the cold marble of the lab floor.

"Well," Spike sputtered. "That was bloody exciting wasn't it?"

**A/N: Well? Was it? I hope this chapter will be appreciated. Almost no one reviewed my last one :(. I hope this chapter was more note worthy. I made Hades helpful because I thought it would be funnier that way. If he needs to be grouchier let me know, and I can change it.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

While the portal back to the living demention was a nice thought from Hades, the lord of the dead needed to work on his placement. As it was, our heroes found themselves falling from the glass ceiling straight towards the polished floor of the lab. The people who would likely be crushed by the impact, A.K.A. Dawn and Booth had the time to think: _This would be a really stupid way to die. _Everyone else was thinking something like; _Seriously?!_

Luckily for everyone, Hades had apparently planned slightly ahead. About half way to the floor the fall was stopped by a large cushion of warm air. It wasn't really a soft landing, but it was better then the actual floor.

Dawn sat up and poked experimentally at the cushion. "Neat," she commented. "Do you think I could get one of these to float me around full time? Or, is this more of a one time thing?"

"Hades seemed to like you," Connor said. "You could probably ask for your birthday."

Buffy held up one hand to shush everyone. "Do you guys hear that?" she asked, looking around. "That my friends is the sound of silence that would normally be filled with the voice of a sadistic serial killer."

"Yeah," Angel said with a rare smile. "It feels nice."

While they had been talking, the bubble had sunk to the ground like a slowly deflating balloon. Spike got off first when they reached the ground. "Now _that _fun."

Faith threw up her hands in exasperation. "That's it! I'm getting you a dictionary for christmas so that you can look up the word 'fun'. I have some serious doubtage that you know what it means."

At that moment, Bones, Hodgins, and Angela came rushing in. Willow followed a bit more slowly. She had experienced the group after missions enough to know that if no one was running around covered in blood, and no one had died, then there was probably nothing to worry about. The scientists flocked around Booth asking questions. Willow just locked eyes with Buffy and mouthed, "Are you good?"

Buffy nodded. "Alright everyone! Back off a moment so we can do the breathing thing. I've been told it's important for those of us who aren't dead already. Willow, can you come and zap Dawn's arm with your mojo?"

The Wicca stepped forward and took Dawn's arm in her hand. She placed her hand right above the cut and concentrated for a moment. Dawn felt a rush of warmth run up her arm, and then a pinching sensation before her arm went back to normal.

Willow beamed. "That should do it."

"Thanks Willow," Dawn told her as she peeled away the bandage and tossed it into the nearest trash can. "Why is blood always required for rituals?" Dawn asked of the room in general. "Why can't rituals ever call for some toenail clippings or something?"

"Blood is a representation of life force," Angel answered matter of factly.

Dawn made a face. "Morbid much Angel? I thought you'd be less doom and gloom now."

He shrugged. "Habit."

"Economy of phrasing isn't just a practice with you is it?" Faith teased. "With you it's, really more of an art form."

"Tosser's right though," Spike said as he walked towards some chairs. "Blood carries everything that's important to humans. Why do you think vampire's drink it?"

"Are you going to tell the rest of us what happened now?" Hodgins asked impatiently. "We can't have this place on lock down for much longer without guys in Haz Mat suites breaking down the doors."

Everyone looked around. "I think we had all better sit down for this. And I would not hate some sugar mixed with caffeine at this point," Buffy said.

"Oh! I have coffee and donuts up in the lounge!" Willow said happily. "I was anticipating some post mission snacking, so I came ready."

Faith perked up visibly. "Did you get Jelly?"

With that, everyone moved off towards the lounge. This was a pattern that they all knew. Go on a mission, carry out what needed accomplishing, get back, consume enough quick energy to keep you awake, dish what had happened, then go crash for a minimum of 24 straight hours. Buffy, Dawn, and Willow knew the score from having to report to Giles. Spike, Angel, and Conner were just following ingrained habits, and Faith was following the crowd.

It took about forty five minutes to give a rough outline of what had happened during their little trip to dead land, which was also about thirty minutes longer than anyone who had actually gone on the trip had wanted it to take. Dawn hadn't even made it through the entire conversation. She was out cold with her head on Conner's shoulder.

Then there were the questions. Buffy, Booth, Angel, Conner, Faith, and Spike did their best to answer them, but after another half an hour Angel decided it was time to call it quits. Booth couldn't really explain anything, Faith and Spike were more wrapped up in each other than they were in answering questions, Buffy was yawning as much as she was talking, and Conner was about as social as he was. Angel sensed the duty of answerer coming around to him, and decided that it was time to act fast. It was drastic, but it should work.

He cleared his throat. "Everyone," he started. "We all know you could probably ask questions until next year some time, but look around for a moment." Bones, Angela and Hodgins took in the fact that the group looked like they had been running away from, while simultaneously fighting an Abrams Tank. At least Angela and Hodgins had the decency to look abashed. Bones still had a scientific gleam in her eye. "Three people are asleep, or headed that way. Faith and Spike need to move before we all get scared for life, and besides," Angel let his face shift into vampire mode. "I haven't had any blood in almost a whole day."

"Right," Bones said with some alarm. "You all had better be going then."

Angel nodded and let his features go human again. He shook Buffy awake gently. She blinked at him sleepily. "Time for walking?" she asked.

"Yeah, time to go?"

Buffy pouted up at him and shook her head. "Do I gotta? Feeling way sleepy."

Angel leaned down and kissed her gently. "Do you want me to carry you and wake you up later when it's time to pack?" Buffy nodded plaintively, and Angel let out a little chuckle. "Go back to sleep Love."

He looked up at his son. "Can you carry Dawn?"

"Noooo," Connor said sarcastically. "I can slay demons the size of hotels, but I can't lift a 110 pound sleeping girl. Could you give me _some_ credit?"

Angel ignored him and lifted Buffy into his arms and walked towards the door. He smacked Spike hard on the back of the head on his way by to break him away from Faith.

"Do you want me to drive?" Willow offered when they got to the car.

Angel nodded and slid into the back seat. He was soon joined by everyone else and they headed back towards Booth's apartment to pick up the rest of their possessions. When the car pulled up, Buffy jolted awake and sat p straight. She blinked, "is it time to pack now?"

"Yup B," Faith said. "Let's go mega pack."

The entire group moved through Booth's apartment like very tidy tornadoes. They left almost no trace that they had ever occupied the place at all. When everything was packed, they mt quickly in the living room.

"Where are we headed now Peaches?" Spike asked.

Angel held out the key Hades had given him. "We are going home for a while," he handed Willow a tiny piece of paper with the address written and turned to the others to explain. "About seven years ago I bought my old family house in Ireland. I've been renovating it since then, and I guess Hades finished the job for me."

Buffy held up her hands in front of her face. "Run that one by me one more time. We have a _house? _In _Ireland?_"

"Um... yes." Buffy jumped forward to kiss him. "So I take it you're happy?" Angel said when he could talk again.

Buffy grinned. "I'm very happy. Now let's blow this town. I'm sick of all the scientists."

"The portal awaits," Willow gestured towards a glowing portal. "Just one thing. Did we forget about the pentagram in the Jeffersonian Lab?"

"Send them some freaking scrubbing bubbles," Angel said in exasperation.

And so, with that cheery statement, and their mission accomplished, our heroes left Washington D.C. behind them for good, and headed for their immortal futures together.

**A/N: Finish! So? What did you think of the whole story? The ending may have been a little sudden, but I wasn't sure exactly how to end this. If anyone has a suggestion I can try to look into changing it. Let me know! I'm about to start another fanfiction for those of you who love the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. Will meets Jace in the clash of the Herondales. Could be epic!**


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